Debunking is Nothing Like Spelunking

Myth #1: A nation watched as tragedy unfolded
Few people actually saw what happened live on television. The flight occurred during the early years of cable news, and although CNN was indeed carrying the launch when the shuttle was destroyed, all major broadcast stations had cut away — only to quickly return with taped relays. With Christa McAuliffe set to be the first teacher in space, NASA had arranged a satellite broadcast of the full mission into television sets in many schools, but the general public did not have access to this unless they were one of the then-few people with satellite dishes. What most people recall as a "live broadcast" was actually the taped replay broadcast soon after the event.
7 myths about the Challenger shuttle disaster

I was in the third grade. My teacher, short black hair and glasses, rolled the television to the front of the classroom. She plugged in the set and stood back, adjusting the connection. The class fidgeted in their seats.

I kept a stash of sunflower seeds under the lid of my desk, but I didn’t like to eat them. The shells got everywhere. Another girl, Mary, gave me a handful once and I never got rid of them. I don’t know why. Sometimes I’d suck on grapes because then the teacher couldn’t see I was eating. You weren’t supposed to eat in class. It was a special day because we were going to watch a rocket go into space and there was a teacher on the shuttle and it was history. We saw the teacher in the official photos, in front of the NASA background. Her name was Christa, and that’s only one letter different from my name.

Then the shuttle was on television and we were all watching. We watched it get higher and higher, and then we saw something that wasn’t supposed to happen. We saw it smoke and break apart and the shock in the classroom was heavy and sudden, and the teacher lunged forward to turn off the set so we wouldn’t have to watch it any longer.

I remember we had the opportunity to buy photographs of the Challenger crew, but I can’t recall if it was before or after the disaster. I think it was a few years later. I bought a NASA sticker and the photos and they came in a big white envelope. I stared at their headshots and group photos for a long time, and I remember I was very sad because no more teachers would ever get sent up into space again.