Boxing Clever: I couldn't look away from Challenger documentary but don’t watch The Haunting of Bly Manor
Challenger - The Final Flight. Picture: Netflix
I remember where I was at lunchtime on January 28, 1986. It was the Common Room in UCC, packed with students watching grainy footage on a 24" TV of the space shuttle Challenger exploding soon after launch. There was silence for about 10 minutes and then a murmur rose around the room as people started to make sick jokes about people dying on television.
I feel bad about it now, having watched on Netflix. The 4-parter has been around for a few weeks but I didn’t feel the urge to try it out until my wife put it on the other night on spec. After that, I couldn’t look away. There is a bit of everything in the story. The headline is that the first non-astronaut sent into space was among the casualties, a teacher from New Hampshire called Christa McAuliffe, who was married with kids. She renewed public interest in the space shuttle programme (just as NASA planned), which meant there was lots of footage of her before the launch living the American dream at home and at work. This gave a real punch to the footage of her family watching her die from the viewing platform, along with the images of her pupils watching back in New Hampshire, the cameras lingering on their shocked faces for longer than was decent. (I’m no one to talk though, given the sick-joke carry-on back in Cork.)
