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Originally Posted by iambecomelife
Mikhail Gorbachev said some very kind words in the wake of the tragedy; despite the competition between the USA & USSR this was clearly recognized as a human tragedy, like all other space mishaps.
I don't remember the day of the disaster but I do remember the animations ABC News showed during the investigation - probably from around late 1986 - 1987. I was a toddler but it still made a big impact on me-the videos of this amazing machine, the smiling crew, and then that awful white explosion. I drew it often in the sketch pads my parents bought me when I was 4-5 years old.
Along with the "Herald of Free Enterprise" the Afghanistan/USSR conflict, and the Northwest Airlines disaster, the Challenger was the news event I remember the best from my preschool days.
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I am hardly surprised that Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev would have expressed his sympathies as that's how he was / is. This is undoubtedly why former president Ronald Regan held Mikhail is such high regard not only as a head of state but also as a person. I'm sure Mikhail thought the same way as he and his wife Raisa visited the Reagan's at their ranch. I well remember Mikhail standing right beside England's Margaret Thatcher at Ronald Reagan's funeral.
If you were drawing this out on your sketch pads, then you were trying to make sense of this tragedy and dealing with your own grief. I'm sure from what you said that this was very traumatizing for you at such a young age and I'm deeply saddened that this tragedy was an introduction of sorts for you to the space program.