Sorry if this isn't the right place to ask this. But Space history is still history. I always hear adults talking about the Challenger Disaster. "I remember when it happened... We watched in on TV" they all say and basically always compare it to 9/11 in terms of the shock and horror they felt.

I do understand that Christa McAuliffe was to be the first teacher in space so there were a lot more people watching than the Columbia disaster. But I hardly ever hear the Columbia disaster brought up in conversation, almost as if it's never happened. In fact, I bet if you asked any random adult which space shuttle exploded, their immediate response would be "Challenger." When asked about the other one, I question whether or not they would be able to remember the name. Maybe they can. But people always talk about the one "when the space shuttle exploded with the teacher on it."

Columbia was just as traumatizing for me as Challenger was for my parent's generation. Here I was, not even five years old and really interested in space. I followed STS-107 from beginning to end and I eagerly woke up to see Columbia land. I come downstairs to see my mom in horror in front of of the TV as Columbia comes down in flaming pieces. I was very young so I didn't really process death too well yet. But I remember becoming obsessed with Columbia and watching the launch and landing footage over and over again. It pretty much killed space for me, to say the least. Now obviously, I know that this kind of stuff is part of the game and something will always go wrong. But at four years old, that shit hits deep...

I would argue Columbia was a factor in the death of the shuttle program. I remember hearing about future shuttles that could take off from a runway and go into orbit, and of course that infamous trip to Mars. But after Columbia, they didn't even bother building another shuttle. I get that shuttle launches are way more expensive than just sending up a capsule, but the shuttles themselves I always thought were quite a step forward in space travel. You can fit labs, satellites, or whatever else you want inside of them and do all kinds of fascinating things. They were very versatile.

But I guess I have to put on my historian hat here and think globally. Tensions in the Middle East of course were heating up. So I'm sure that a lot of NASA's money was pulled and dumped into that. Anyways, does someone want to help me out with this one? I'm really curious to see what people think.