In Memoriam STS-51-L

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Wargamer and RPG'er since the 1970's, author of Adventures Dark and Deep, Castle of the Mad Archmage, and other things, and proprietor of the Greyhawk Grognard blog.

3 thoughts on “In Memoriam STS-51-L”

  1. Twenty-five years ago and I still can't watch that without shedding a tear.

    Dr. Ron McNair was also an accomplished saxophonist. Before this mission, he had worked with composer Jean Michel Jarre on a piece of music for Jarre's then-upcoming album "Rendez-Vous".

    It was intended that he would record his saxophone solo on board the Challenger, which would have made McNair's solo the first original piece of music to have been recorded in space.

    "Rendez-Vous" was released with the planned solo (called Ron's Piece) that would have been played. To me, it's very emotional to listen to in light of the disaster.

    Ciao!

  2. "The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God." – Ronald Reagan, 1/28/1986

  3. I remember that day well. I was attending Huntley Middle School in De Kalb, IL. My gymn teacher Mr. Richot was a runner up to go on the space shuttle. They recorded the footage and were going to show it to the students and then later made the announcement about the disaster. We had a student assembly later that day and they did show us the footage.

    Mr. Richot would later put up a display in the school lobby with pictures he took while participating with the NASA program. And there was one picture of Mr. Richot with his arm around Christa McAuliffe. Very haunting.

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