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I haven’t been the same since the Challenger explosion


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It was Jan. 28, 1986. We paused a press conference for the upcoming SunBank 24 (before Rolex bought the naming rights) minutes before liftoff to head for the roof of the SunBank building in downtown Orlando.

It was bitterly cold, shortly before noon. I stood next to British sports car driver Derek Bell as we watched the vapor trails of STS-51-L Challenger as it left Launch Pad 39B and lifted toward space.

A minute later, we saw a large plume of white smoke. Bell asked if that was normal. I said, “Not really,” but I assured him he’d soon see the shuttle pop through the top of the cloud.

We all know it never did. Moments later, the two solid rocket boosters squirted wildly like pinwheels.

I called my Florida Today/USA Today office and asked what just happened. The distraught switchboard operator screamed, “It blew up! It blew up!”

Thus began one of the strangest turns in my professional career.

The story really began 18 days earlier on the golf course. The threesome included sports editor Tom Squires, photographer Mike Brown and me. Tom asked Mike why he always photographed launches. Mike said, “Because something will go wrong one day, and I will get it (the photograph).”

Little did he know …

I went on to cover the 24-hour race four days later.

Based in Melbourne, Florida Today/USA Today was across the Indian River from the Kennedy Space Center. The space agency was our bread and butter.

We later learned it was between 32 and 34 degrees at launch time. The temperature and wind shear hardened and cracked the rubber seal in the right SRB. At liftoff, wisps of hot gases went through the cracks and penetrated the external fuel tank, and 73 seconds into their flight, the vehicle exploded. All seven astronauts died.

Fast forward two years and nine months later. The nation joined everyone along the Space Coast, who were cautiously optimistic about the return of the shuttle program as STS Discovery was positioned for launch on Sept. 29.

USA founder Al Neuharth came to Melbourne to personally supervise coverage. He wanted a special section to be printed five minutes after the launch. The section was ready before the launch with everything except the lead story. The story was the same except for the top few paragraphs detailing a successful launch and another failure.

Then Neuharth told the Florida Today/USA Today brass he had an idea for a full-page feature for a special story. He liked a sportswriter and wanted him to do a feature on the famed “shuttle parties” before each launch.

The publisher and Tom Squires called me into the office and gave me the assignment. They told me not to mess it up. If they asked me to talk to people in a bar having a good time, I wouldn’t fret.

What I quickly realized was nobody was in a partying mood. If another shuttle malfunctioned, the space center would go belly-up.

Bars that used to be packed with revelers were quiet. I couldn’t find anyone hosting a house party. I tuned into WDIZ radio from Orlando, and they played nothing but space-related rock songs. , I decided to write the first verse of a song and follow it with one of my stops. “Rocket Man,” and “Space Truckin’,” “The Final Countdown,” “Starship Trooper” and “Space Oddity.”

The photographer and I were driving along A1A in Melbourne, and we came up to a house with about 30 cars parked along the road. A shuttle party, perhaps? I knocked on the door, and Peter Jennings of ABC News answered. It was Al Neuharth’s beach house, and I didn’t know. I excused myself and left.

We left for Jetty Park and found several hundred campers. Most seemed apprehensive, not knowing that weeks later, that same jetty entrance would be where the U.S. Navy would bring the remains of the shuttle and the bodies to the space center.

I finished the story by daybreak, logged it and left. My drive back to the west to Orlando took an hour, and I passed more than 1,000 cars parked facing east, waiting to see the launch. Ten miles from home, I saw the yellow glow of Discovery’s SRBs in my side mirrors. I prayed it would safely reach space because turning back wasn't an option. It got into space, and I went to bed.

I saw it happen. I saw how it affected lives. I saw the relief when the space industry rebounded. For once, it wasn't a game. It was real life.

Nothing’s been the same for me since.