I remember that NASA ignored the Morton Thiokol engineers that specifically warned of this failure in the extreme cold because that asshole Reagan wanted a teacher in space in time for his State of the Union. Remember this anytime a politician or executive chooses to ignore the engineers.

I stopped by a friend’s house to get my Happy Birthday hug from her. She said “did you see what happened?” It was on the TV. My jaw hit the ground. I was stationed at Fort Knox at the time. I couldn’t listen to all the jokes that were being said.

How well known is it that Ron McNair took a soprano sax onto Challenger? He wanted to play in space. I learned this from Kurt Heisig who runs a music shop. Before the launch Kurt showed me a picture of himself, Ron, and the sax taken in his shop which was then in Saratoga, CA.

I will never forget OTD in 1986.

I will never forget that day. I was a freshman in college and in the car with my girlfriend when the news broke. We got to a tv as soon as we could, horrified.