5th grade. The class down the hall watched on TV, but we were still in lesson, maybe taking a break. It was a quiet affair after that, midwestern folks are calm like that, I guess. I also happened to have been home sick on the day of the first launch of them all, the Columbia in '81 I think. I watched it on the portable black and white from my bed, and considered myself pretty lucky in retrospect that I got to see it first. That it was the first launch of a doomed craft has soured that memory, we know what became of the Columbia as well. I've begun to have serious doubts about the orbiter program as it's 1970's technology still has about a 1% failure rate. I know we have some wacky flying shit out in the Area 51's of this country, but what's the point sending up astronauts right now anyway? Space is just the big Nothing at this point, we've got too many problems on Earth.