Tragedy on a Winter's Morning

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 along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind—swept 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.

Tragedy on a Winter’s Morning

I am in tears this morning, flooded with memories of the first shuttle we lost. I had just turned 17 a few weeks before, and it was one of the defining moments of my burgeoning adulthood, one of those events I’ll always remember.

My thoughts and wishes go out to their families. As Tom posted this morning, simply and elegantly in memoriam:

Ad Astra Per Aspera
In loving memory of the 7 who died on Columbia.

Cmdr. Rick Husband
Pilot William McCool
Payload Commander Michael Anderson
Mission Specialist Kalpana Chawla
Mission Specialist David Brown
Mission Specialist Laurel Blair Salton Clark
Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon

From Time Magazine, 1986

Across the nation, people groped for words. "It exploded," murmured Brian French, a senior at Concord High School in New Hampshire, as the noisy auditorium fell quiet. A classmate, Kathy Gilbert, turned to him and asked, "Is that really where she was?" At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., scientists turned away from their remarkable new photographs of the distant planet Uranus and stared, stunned, at the telecast from Florida. "We all knew it could happen one day," said one, "but, God, who would have believed it?"