Dear friends,
This week I was researching a topic and thought of the moving poem read
during a Challenger Memorial I attended at Brooklyn College in 1986. I
remember how moving it was and could only recall the last line
'touching the face of God.' I located it for my project and now pass it
on to all of you with sadness on the news of the loss of the Columbia
shuttle. I hope its poetic expression will give you some comfort in this
great tragedy.
Terri McNichol
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 windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or 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.
John Gillespie Magee, Jr. Pilot Officer Magee joined the Royal Canadian
Air Force in October 1940, at age 18. He went to England to fly
Spitfires. After qualifying, he was piloting one on a test flight into
the stratosphere at 30,000 feet when he got the inspiration for "High
Flight." Magee was killed in action during a dogfight December 11, 1941,
at age 19.
If we die, we want people to accept it. We hope that if anything happens
to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the
risk of life. -Gus Grissom
Vergil "Gus" Grissom made the ultimate sacrifice and lost his life in
service to the nation and the space program on January 27, 1967 at 40
years of age.
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