Remembering the Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion

January 28, 1986, I walked into the doctor's office with my mom to see on TV that the space shuttle Challenger had exploded a few minutes earlier shortly after lift off. The news was showing the explosion over and over while the news anchors kept speculating on what went wrong.

I remember learning in school about the teacher Christa McAuliffe who had gone through astronaut training and would be the first teacher, and I would guess, first civilian to go into space. She was to teach a couple of classes to her students from on board the shuttle and eventually travel across the United States to speak at other schools according to circa.com.

Space shuttle launches had always been fascinating to me. It was one thing I wanted to be when I grew up. Obviously that didn't happen because I still haven't grown up. There's still time, I guess. But even at nine years old, this was devastating to me. Every year of the anniversary, I still remember that image of walking into the pediatrician's office and seeing the accident in the waiting room.

It's a shame that the space shuttle program has been shut down. You really have to think about all the successes America's space program has accomplished with only three major incidents, Apollo 1 fire, Apollo 13 accident and the Challenger explosion.

It's hard to forget this tragedy, however, even 34 years later.