Challenger, 20 years
Saturday, 28 January 2006 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daHigh Flight, by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
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 nor even 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.
Can it really be twenty years? I was home sick when the Challenger blew up, and I watched it on TV. 6th grade. I was quite the space-exporation nut back then. I think after the Challenger explosion my enthusiasm for manned space-flight diminished; I think I let my Oddysey Magazine subscription lapse that year. My parents were (and are) strongly opposed to manned space-flight on practical grounds, since it was mostly military and a huge expense better spent on other things. But I can remember arguing with them that it was still important, even after the explosion.
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 nor even 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.
Can it really be twenty years? I was home sick when the Challenger blew up, and I watched it on TV. 6th grade. I was quite the space-exporation nut back then. I think after the Challenger explosion my enthusiasm for manned space-flight diminished; I think I let my Oddysey Magazine subscription lapse that year. My parents were (and are) strongly opposed to manned space-flight on practical grounds, since it was mostly military and a huge expense better spent on other things. But I can remember arguing with them that it was still important, even after the explosion.
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Date: Sunday, 29 January 2006 08:43 pm (UTC)I gradually become more disaffected (or maybe depressed/conflicted) about space-travel, when it became clear that the rest of the US was going to turn the explosion into a discourse on whether the shuttles should continue at all.
If you ever get the chance to hear Laurie Anderson's "The End of the Moon" (which I'm hoping she puts on CD eventually), I think you will like it. She talks about her sense of loss when Columbia was spread across the continent...