Yeah, Right, Whatever

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the STS Challenger accident. Since then, the US has gone back into space, and then the STS Columbia accident occured, the fleet was grounded again, then up for one flight, and grounded once again.

For me, today is not a day to ask the tough questions. Those have been asked and will be asked again and again. Today is a day to remember those who died living out their dream.

The poem "High Flight" by pilot John Gillespie Magee, Jr. has become tied with the Challenger accident because President Reagan quoted the first and lines of the poem during the memorial service. Here it is:

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 along, 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, or 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.

*Thanks to my editor (Dad) I've fixed the crew photo.