Anybody who was old enough remembers where they were on January 28, 1986 when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded over Cape Canaveral. An amateur video has surfaced recording the event from a much greater distance than the NASA tape with which we are all so familiar.
The footage was captured by retired optometrist Jack Moss, and has sat in a box in his basement since that day:
"It is believed to be the only amateur film in existence of the world's worst space disaster, recorded in an era before mobile phone cameras, when even home camcorders were rare. 'I don't think Mr Moss thought it was anything significant. He put it down in his basement with other tapes he had and just forgot about it,' said Wessels, executive director of the Space Exploration Archive, a Kentucky-based group that collects space memorabilia for educational purposes. 'It's a unique vignette of a moment in history. We've seen the pictures from the ground at the point of explosion at Cape Canaveral, but never anything like this. It's remarkable raw footage.'"
Even with 24 years gone by, watching it still brings those feelings of despair flooding back. This video really captures the reaction many of us had as we realized that crew may have been lost. God rest their souls.
Watch, AFTER THE JUMP…
