Reacting to the Challenger
by digby
This interesting footage from the Challenger disaster has surfaced showing the reaction to the explosions among onlookers at the scene. I’m not sure what to think about this. I watched the thing live — I was getting ready for work and it happened to be on TV, and I knew what had happened the minute I saw it. People my age watched dozens of space launches and I assumed knew exactly what one was supposed to look like — and this certainly didn’t look like it. But these people don’t seem to understand that something’s gone wrong until it’s announced over the loudspeaker.
Maybe it’s a human response — you can’t believe what you are seeing before you because it’s so horrible, while seeing it on TV has enough distance that you can grok the reality more quickly. I think the same thing happened on 9/11 — I knew the minute I saw the footage of the plane hitting the first building that it was likely a terrorist attack, but again there was that distance that allowed me to accept such a terrible thing.
Anyway, this amateur video is fascinating. It’s amazing what awful things we witness in our lives and just go on. Of course, we don’t have a lot of choice, do we?
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