Anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion

It didn't take long before everyone knew what an O ring was. The understatement of the decade, "Obviously, a major malfunction."

The next day I flew down to Florida on business, where I had a window seat on the left hand side of our US Air flight. I looked down on a checkerboard pattern in the Atlantic formed by the wakes of dozens of recovery ships, each circling within their segment of the search grid. It was a sad and sobering sight.

RIP Teacher-in-Space payload specialist Sharon Christa McAuliffe; payload specialist Gregory Jarvis; and astronauts Judith A. Resnik, mission specialist; Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, mission commander; Ronald E. McNair, mission specialist; Mike J. Smith, pilot; and Ellison S. Onizuka, mission specialist.