[brudgers]

Growing up in Orlando, watching a shuttle launch was something we did outside. I think the only one I watched on TV was a day junior year we skipped high school and Phil drove to Titusville. He had a 72 Impala hardtop with the small block 400. We hung out in his sister's apartment drinking beer and watching the broadcast of Shuttle on the pad until just after lift-off. Then we stepped out onto the back balcony and there it was just a few miles away coming up over the landscape.

I was living in Gainesville (you can't usually see anything from there) and sitting in a morning sociology class when Challenger launched. I came back from class, flipped on the TV and there was Dan Rather and a talking head with a shuttle model. The thing I remember most was going to statistics class that afternoon and some student saying they couldn't believe it had happened and asking if it really had. I was kinda' stunned because I figured any intelligent educated person would know that blowing up is something rockets tend to do. Of course the big deficiency was in my model of other minds.