If you are old, about half way done, like me, you might remember the Challenger shuttle explosion. It was broadcast live on plain old television service and they wheeled in a TV for us to watch in my kindergarten classroom, presumably due to the “teacher in space program.”

Needless to say, the launch didn’t go as planned and our teacher abruptly shut off the TV. At 5 years old, I didn’t know what I was looking at…I had seen videos of other shuttle launches and knew the vehicle sort of intentionally fell apart when certain tanks were out of fuel so it wasn’t clear to me that at the time that what happened to challenger wasn’t planned.

Anyhow, a lot of words were spoken to our class but nothing I can remember was said other than our parents would talk to us when we got home. I vaguely recall a serious talk with my parents about the shuttle exploding and me being asked if I understood what they were saying. I totally understood what they said. But what they didn’t say I had no fucking clue about.

Call me stupid, I didn’t realize there were people aboard the rocket. I mean, strapping your ass to a bomb doesn’t sound plausible, right? It didn’t really click with me that the failure of the shuttle to get to space meant that people died. A specific number of people. With names. Identities. Families. But I knew the launch ended in an explosion and the rocket didn’t make it to space. Mission failure. Try again next time.

Sometimes we can be too quick to assume what another person understands.