It was 28 degrees on that fateful day in January of 1986 at Cape Canaveral, Fla. I was very fortunate to have been selected to be part of a very small team of engineers to work at launch pad 39B of the Space Shuttle Challenger 51 L launch. We were the closest (outside) human beings to the shuttle and the astronauts. This is my account of the before and after of what was the first in air disaster of Americas Space Program.