OP

Quoted from Coindork:

Every time I see a Space Shuttle pinball machine in makes me think of the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster from when I was a kid.
I was in 5th grade in 1986 at the time and remember my teacher at the time making a big deal about the project and how they were sending a civilian teacher into space as part of the project. We talked about it in class quite a bit leading up to it and how this was such a big step for space exploration allowing teachers to go into space and come back as educators with that experience. I even remember my teacher at the time telling us that she wished she had been chosen for the project and how lucky the teacher was that was going on the mission.
We watched the footage of the launch in class and I remember us taking about it as a class afterward.
I'm not sure I fully understood the severity and impact of the situation at 11 years old, but I do remember a lot of the kids being upset etc.
I was in a private school at the time (catholic) and remember the class praying for the crew etc.
Anyhow, as I mentioned, every time I see a Space Shuttle pin it makes me think of the Challenger.
The Teacher in Space Project (TISP) was announced in August of 1984 where a Teacher would go up on the Challenger mission.
The pinball machine apparently was released in December of the same year, I have to assume capitalizing on all of the media coverage, hype and ongoing promotion on the subject.
So basically the pin was out at locations for a little over a year before the Challenger Disaster occurred in January of 1986.
I would have only been 11 years old in 1986 but do remember seeing Space Shuttle pins at places like the bowling alley by my house.
They made 7000 of these, so it was a pretty high production pinball machine that would have been out at a lot of locations.
I was wondering what peoples reactions were to seeing or playing this machine shortly after the Challenger Disaster.
Did people feel strange playing it? Did some ops pull it shortly after the Challenger Disaster?
Asking out of general curiosity as I was too young at the time to understand the impact (if any) and at the time I was mainly playing arcade games rather than pinball.