Today marks the 20'th anniversary of the Challenger explosion.  I was home sick that day and remember watching it live on TV.  I was in the 6th grade.  I imagine this was the first national tragedy that I remember.  I remember flipping through the channels and nothing was on except soap operas and this was in the days of 12 channels.  So I decided to watch the launch.  I recall that these were very frequent and routine.  I remember that these became some anti-dramatic that many stations stop covering the launches.

Later in life, I went to college to become an engineer and joined my fraternity.  As a freshman, I remember learning our history and learned this:

Ellison Onizuka colo69 flew on Discovery as a mission specialist in January 1985 and lost his life in the Challenger accident in January 1986. The United States Air Force's Onizuka Air Station was located in Sunnyvale, CA. (The station is now closed). An episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation mentions a (fictional) shuttlecraft named after Brother Onizuka.

Pasted from <http://www.triangle.org/about/notable/index.cfm>