I've been out of aerospace long enough that I don't remember the date unless I'm reminded, but I remember the event vividly. I was on the Space Shuttle Team. I worked in the SLC-6 Launch Control Center at Vandenberg. Some of my peers had just returned from cross-training at KSC a few days earlier, having missed the launch due to the delays.

I worked from 3:30 PM to midnight those days, so I spent almost all day before work watching the news and seeing the videos of the event over and over. For me it was more of a shock than 9/11/2001 turned out to be.