The following five stories represent only a sample of the amazing and touching experiences our readers possess. We invite everyone to read their posts and share your own memories of Challenger and her crew.

When I heard about it, I was just waking up to the news on the radio. Because of the time difference between Korea and the U.S., the accident occurred while most of us were still asleep. The rate at which information became available to us 15 years ago was slow and tedious. We were awaken with news video and reports that were hours old. Everyone was grief stricken...almost in shock.

The details of the accident were sketchy and I remember that made the day painstakingly long and solemn. No one said much. It changed a great many people and how they view the space program. There were seven lives on that shuttle striving to explore the unknown of space and to make our space program the best. It was difficult knowing that they were gone.

At the end of the day, the flag was ceremoniously lowered down off the mast. It is clearly etched in my memory how I stood there that fateful day, with great pride saluting the colors and the heroic Challenger 7 crew.

Late that Saturday night, when the scrub was decided, I had called the crew quarters and spoken to Dick Scobee, the commander. My boss, Senator Jake Garn of Utah, and I had been invited to have breakfast with the crew on the morning of the launch. Mike Smith, the pilot, had been Jake's "Mother Hen," assigned to help him in his flight training the year previously, for his flight on STS-51D, and had invited us to join them that morning. I told Dick we had to go back to D.C., and wished them well on their planned lunch the next day, which was also eventually scrubbed because of a problem with the door latch.

As I watched the launch, my thoughts were with the crew, most of whom I had gotten to know during the time I was in Houston the previous year, and with whom I had watched the launch of STS-61C just three weeks before. When the shuttle disappeared in the ball of fire, I felt part of my world just come apart. I jumped up from my couch and just stood there, watching the debris falling and hoping, against all hope, that I would see parachutes or some indication that the crew was somehow okay.

As I watched the debris falling into the ocean, for what seemed like forever, I called Jake. He immediately went into the office and held a press conference saying we needed to find out what happened, fix it, and go on. Later that day he and John Glenn went with then Vice President Bush down to the Cape and met with the families of the crew.

I'll never forget Jake's description of that meeting and how those wonderful brave people, in the midst of their personal tragedy and incredible sense of loss, said that they knew their loved ones who had died that day would want the dream of spaceflight to go on.

The terrible reality of the risks inherent in human space exploration came home to all of us that day, and despite the best efforts to reduce that risk and fix the problems that led to that tragedy, the danger still exists, and probably always will, as we deal with the incredible forces of power necessary to reach orbit and deal with the hostile environment of space itself. But the dream is stronger than the fear, and we have gone on to the point where now we have a permanent home in space, and humanity will live in the stars from this point forward.

My teacher and I were selected by Ball Aerospace as one of six student-teacher pairs sent to Florida to see the shuttle launch. Like most kids, I dreamed of being an astronaut and traveling to Mars one day.

I remember the excitement and anticipation of the days before the launch. Never once did I think that something could go wrong. I remember huddling with the other kids wrapped in trash bags and hotel blankets to stay warm during the launch delays at KSC.

When the countdown finally made it to zero, the crowd let out a huge cheer. We watched in awe as the Challenger climbed its way deep into the sky. When the explosion happened, I didn't know for a few moments what was going on. My young mind had difficulty registering the massive significance of what just happened. The crowd went silent. Moments later, it was announced that there was "obviously a major malfunction."

At the age of 10, I had just witnessed the death of seven of my heroes. It took a long time for me to deal with my feelings about the accident. Eventually, I realized that an even bigger tragedy would be not learning from the disaster. No matter how well we engineer and test, there will always be unforeseen problems. It's how we deal with them that counts.

I think the Challenger disaster has played a role in decisions throughout my life. I went to college to study electrical engineering and today I am designing products that make life safer for thousands of people. I will always remember the Challenger and the seven people who gave their lives in the name of space exploration.

At the time of the launch, I and about 30 other people, including some of the Astronaut Corps, were sitting in the conference room in the Shuttle Mission Training Facility, which houses the shuttle simulators. We were watching the one TV in the building. I remember sitting across from astronaut Anna Fisher. When the explosion occurred, the room fell deathly silent, save for one lone gasp and sob from someone in the front of the room. When I saw the fireball, I kept waiting for the orbiter to rise out of the other side, but it never did. I remember thinking "two years, we're going to be grounded for two years." The loss hadn't hit me yet. Then, as if by some secret signal, all the astronauts in the room stood up as one and left.

I was also a volunteer for the "Dial-A-Shuttle" program after work, which at the time was run from the JSC news building. When I showed up that day, it still hadn't sunk in. Then President Reagan came on the TV in the news room, and gave his speech about seven brave Americans. Then it hit me. I could do nothing except put my head down and cry. I cried for a long time.

I also remember STS-26, Discovery's return to flight, watching that launch with friends at work [I was working for a different NASA contractor by that time], and holding my breath [it seemed] until the boosters separated and the shuttle was once again on its way. That was a very long 2 minutes and 10 seconds. We've come a long way since then, and I'm now working on the space station simulators, but the image of that fireball is printed in my mind forever.

Like many others I had become blasé about travel into space. It was one of the safest ways to travel after all. NASA had everything sussed now with their powerful computers and all. Wrong, the scenes that unfolded will stay with me forever. Disbelief, dismay, sorrow, shock, etc. on the faces on TV, my own stomach churning. This was not happening.

Glued to the TV screen like some voyeur hoping against hope that the pictures were wrong, sometime now a parachute will appear, it will surely appear... no parachute. Hopes dashed. How those families must feel..

Fifteen years on, I'm 42. I want to go into space. I know the risks, would I take the risk? Yes, I would. Just as every astronaut who enters a space vehicle does. Six billion people on the planet and only a couple of hundred of us have seen the wondrous sight of the planet from space and I would dearly love to be one of them!

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