Where never lark nor even eagle flew.....
Feb. 1st, 2003 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
senoritafishThe first news I heard today was about the Columbia. John told me when he came in the door from taking the car to have the window fixed. I am sad and a little numb, but there are too may other distractions to think about right now. Get the kid's breakfast, change diapers, wipe noses, etc.....
I was in college at Humboldt State when the Challenger blew up on take-off. I could not even watch the television coverage until several days later. My dad had given me a brass pin of the space shuttle and I wore it with a black ribbon for a week. I felt as if a family friend had died. Today, the high school in Los Alamitos is named after the teacher who was on board, Christa McAuliffe
My dad worked for Rockwell International and worked on the shuttle project in its very early days. There is a sticker on my kid's bedroom door (that long ago used to be my room) that has a picture of the shuttle with a smiley face where the nose of it should be. I got it at an open house of the plant in Seal Beach when I was in jr. high, probably five years before the first one was built. At another open house, they passed out sheets of stiff paper that you could cut out and make a paper model of it. I had several hanging from my ceiling, suspended by thread, along with several other satellites made by Rockwell. By this time my dad had transferred to the Navstar project - all those navigational satellites that tell your GPS unit where you are - an option if you have an expensive Cadillac, or you can get little units to plug into your PDA these days. But I digress.
As a family of Trekkers from the very beginning, we were all gratified to see the very first shuttle named the Enterprise, but somewhat disappointed that it never went to space. Nevertheless, we all followed the flights of those following with eagerness, especially when the shuttle took the first woman and other minorities into space. A friend of ours would head out to Edwards Air Force Base to watch the shuttle land whenever it did land there, which seems to have been a rarity in recent years - only if the weather was really bad in Florida. I suppose its too expensive to transport them back to Florida for the next flight, bolted on the back of a special 747.
In recent years, I would kind of smile with nostagia when I heard of a shuttle mission taking off, but I seldom watched them. Every time I flip past the NASA channel on cable, it always seems to be finished with its broadcasting day.
Now I feel somewhat shamed, that like many of my old friends, I haven't kept in touch. That someday, the residents of earth would some establish a presence in space was always a dream of mine. But when I did hear of a shuttle launch, I had a niggling worry that those birds were getting elderly, and had to be getting near the end of their working life. When were they going to start the next step? Were there ever going to be new ones? The space program was always a victim of every budget cut that came along. Now, the U.S.'s only manned space fight is going to be grounded for who knows how long, if ever it starts again.
My heart goes out to all the families. It is probably small comfort to them to know that their loved ones died living their dream, and it was a risk they knew they were taking.
The following is a hoary old poem written by a warrior -- who was not himself hoary - he died at the age of 19, shortly after writing this. It will probably be oft-quoted on this occasion, it always is. However, it brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it, because it has some beautiful imagery. John Denver put it to music following the death of his father, who had been in the Air Force. He added the chorus:
"The higher we fly, the further we go, the closer we are to each other,
The darker the night, the brighter the star, in peace go my sisters and brothers."
High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds,- and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of-wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind aloft, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor ever eagle flew-
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God
- John Gillespie Magee, 1941
...In peace go, my sisters and brothers....
I was in college at Humboldt State when the Challenger blew up on take-off. I could not even watch the television coverage until several days later. My dad had given me a brass pin of the space shuttle and I wore it with a black ribbon for a week. I felt as if a family friend had died. Today, the high school in Los Alamitos is named after the teacher who was on board, Christa McAuliffe
My dad worked for Rockwell International and worked on the shuttle project in its very early days. There is a sticker on my kid's bedroom door (that long ago used to be my room) that has a picture of the shuttle with a smiley face where the nose of it should be. I got it at an open house of the plant in Seal Beach when I was in jr. high, probably five years before the first one was built. At another open house, they passed out sheets of stiff paper that you could cut out and make a paper model of it. I had several hanging from my ceiling, suspended by thread, along with several other satellites made by Rockwell. By this time my dad had transferred to the Navstar project - all those navigational satellites that tell your GPS unit where you are - an option if you have an expensive Cadillac, or you can get little units to plug into your PDA these days. But I digress.
As a family of Trekkers from the very beginning, we were all gratified to see the very first shuttle named the Enterprise, but somewhat disappointed that it never went to space. Nevertheless, we all followed the flights of those following with eagerness, especially when the shuttle took the first woman and other minorities into space. A friend of ours would head out to Edwards Air Force Base to watch the shuttle land whenever it did land there, which seems to have been a rarity in recent years - only if the weather was really bad in Florida. I suppose its too expensive to transport them back to Florida for the next flight, bolted on the back of a special 747.
In recent years, I would kind of smile with nostagia when I heard of a shuttle mission taking off, but I seldom watched them. Every time I flip past the NASA channel on cable, it always seems to be finished with its broadcasting day.
Now I feel somewhat shamed, that like many of my old friends, I haven't kept in touch. That someday, the residents of earth would some establish a presence in space was always a dream of mine. But when I did hear of a shuttle launch, I had a niggling worry that those birds were getting elderly, and had to be getting near the end of their working life. When were they going to start the next step? Were there ever going to be new ones? The space program was always a victim of every budget cut that came along. Now, the U.S.'s only manned space fight is going to be grounded for who knows how long, if ever it starts again.
My heart goes out to all the families. It is probably small comfort to them to know that their loved ones died living their dream, and it was a risk they knew they were taking.
The following is a hoary old poem written by a warrior -- who was not himself hoary - he died at the age of 19, shortly after writing this. It will probably be oft-quoted on this occasion, it always is. However, it brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it, because it has some beautiful imagery. John Denver put it to music following the death of his father, who had been in the Air Force. He added the chorus:
"The higher we fly, the further we go, the closer we are to each other,
The darker the night, the brighter the star, in peace go my sisters and brothers."
High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds,- and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of-wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind aloft, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor ever eagle flew-
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God
- John Gillespie Magee, 1941
...In peace go, my sisters and brothers....
