I was in 6th grade, and for some reason we were out of school that day, so I was at home, helping my Mom clean the house. My parents and I were heading to Orlando a few days later, as my Dad had some meetings down there and Mom & I were going with him for a quick vacation.

We'd totally forgotten there was a launch that day until my friend Kirk came running over with the news, "The space shuttle blew up!" "What? No way!" Then we turned on the TV and saw the replay. A few days later, we were in Florida and took a tour of Kennedy Space Center, but of course it was a very abbreviated tour.

A couple years later I found out that my cousin, a long-time NASA contractor, was working in launch control that day. A very rough day, I imagine.