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Speaker 1: You've heard about this in the news throughout the morning,

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Speaker 1: But forty years ago today, the Challenger disaster took place,

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Speaker 1: the Space Shuttle Challenger going up, exploding into air.

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Speaker 2: This is how it sounded from Mission control.

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Speaker 3: Challenger a good role, program confirmed, Challenger now heading down range.

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Speaker 3: My controllers here looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously

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Speaker 3: a major malfunction.

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Speaker 1: So just forty five seconds, I believe in the flight

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Speaker 1: the Challenger explodes. This was at the time CNN's anchor

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Speaker 1: Tom Mentor. Now back in the day, CNN had cornered

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Speaker 1: the market on news coverage, right, so they may have

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Speaker 1: been the only ones that are full time news networks

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Speaker 1: that were showing this.

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Speaker 2: This is what it sounded like on CNN.

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Speaker 4: About forty five seconds after lift off, a huge fireball

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Speaker 4: in the sky.

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Speaker 3: We have a report from the flight dynamics officer that

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Speaker 3: the vehicle has exploded. Flight director confirms that we are

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Speaker 3: looking at checking with the recovery forces to see what

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Speaker 3: can be done at this point.

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Speaker 5: Were you watching that in school? I was in sixth grade.

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Speaker 5: I was nine or ten years old or just about

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Speaker 5: to turn ten.

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Speaker 1: Yes, And the connection for me was that one of

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Speaker 1: our teachers at South Grove Elementary was a finalist for

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Speaker 1: that Teacher in Space program, which Krista mccauliffe.

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Speaker 2: Won and ultimately lost her life.

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Speaker 1: On our computer, teacher miss Gumbert was a finalist for that.

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Speaker 2: So we were.

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Speaker 1: In class and you know, they wheel in the TV

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Speaker 1: on the cart back in the day, and we all

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Speaker 1: watched it live.

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Speaker 2: She burst into tears.

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Speaker 1: She just bawled and burst into tears because I think

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Speaker 1: she was this close to being named the teacher that

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Speaker 1: went into space.

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Speaker 5: And then it's like, what do you do? If you're

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Speaker 5: a fifth grader or sixth grader, you can even process

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Speaker 5: what just happened. I don't think I was watching it live.

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Speaker 5: I think we were at lunch or gym class or

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Speaker 5: something in elementary school. When I went to North Salem,

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Speaker 5: I was in sixth grade. But yeah, shortly after it happened,

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Speaker 5: I think there was an announcement on the PA system

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Speaker 5: if I can recall correctly, but it was just eugh.

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Speaker 5: I hate listening to that audio. I hate listening to that.

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Speaker 5: You know, it's important to remember for sure, especially the

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Speaker 5: forty eighth anniversary. Forty years has it been that long?

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Speaker 1: The crew Flight Commander Dick Scovie, pilot Michael Smith, Ronald McNair,

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Speaker 1: Allison Osanuka, Judith Resnik, Gregory Jarvis, and the teacher Krista

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Speaker 1: mccauliffe all perished.

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Speaker 2: On that now.

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Speaker 1: That night, I believe it was supposed to be the

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Speaker 1: State of the Union address for Ronald Raygan.

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Speaker 2: They canceled that, and he addressed the nation, Ladies and gentlemen.

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Speaker 4: I'd planned to speak to you tonight to report in

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Speaker 4: the State of the Union, for the events of earlier

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Speaker 4: today have led me to change those plans. Today is

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Speaker 4: a day from morning and remembering Nancy and I are

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Speaker 4: came to the core of the tragedy of the Shuttle Challenger.

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Speaker 4: We know we share this pain with all the people

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Speaker 4: of our country. This is truly a national loss.

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Speaker 1: So I'm forty eight and that's the fortieth anniversary. I

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Speaker 1: feel like this is the first major news story that

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Speaker 1: I remember that resonated with me from my childhood.

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Speaker 2: Interesting, Yeah, like everybody's got that where were you moment? Right?

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Speaker 1: For some people it's the Kennedy assassination. For younger folks,

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Speaker 1: it's nine to eleven, for some it's Pearl Harbor. But

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Speaker 1: for me, the first real news story that I remember

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Speaker 1: that like affected me was the Challenger explosion forty years

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Speaker 1: ago today