It’s been 35 years since the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded upon lift-off.
“It is indelibly etched in my memory,” Diane, from Milwaukee, told WTMJ’s Scott Warras. Diane lived 50 miles north of Cape Canaveral at the time of tragedy.
“I’ve seen many launches, but this one was interesting because of Christa McAuliffe,” she explained. “(When it exploded) it looked like a jelly fish with all these tentacles.”
Hours later, Diane recalled seeing boats along the Atlantic coast line.
“I was watching all these boats and shrimp boats with lights on, searching for debris. They were trying to find (shuttle) pieces.”
Diane couldn’t shake the idea of McAuliffe being on board.
“I just thought of all of those children who had seen their teacher (on the flight),” she said. “It was very tragic.”
Hear Diane’s story below:
Fred Palmer, of Elkhorn, was a teacher in Lomira in 1986. When he heard NASA was going to send a teacher to space, the former Marine applied for the job.
“After months went by, I learned I wasn’t selected,” Palmer told WTMJ’s Scott Warras. Palmer admitted he thinks about his fate, had he been selected.
“The hand of God was on my life and he wanted me to go a different way,” he said. “It’s very real to me.”
Palmer describes how he learned about the explosion in the player below.
