In case you didn’t already know, Rand Simberg has a lot of experience with space related issues and thus has some educated observations about the Columbia tragedy. Of course, Insta-man is on this like gangbusters. Laurence Simon, who one would expect to have inappropriate humor, actually has a very touching sentiment about the tragedy.
Me, I don’t usually post on Saturdays anyway and am just going to chill. My prayers go out to the families of the astronauts and to the nation of Israel, who really doesn’t need yet another tragedy.
“The same Creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today. The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth; yet we can pray that all are safely home.”
–President George W. Bush
I don’t feel terribly touching right now.
Frank, thanks so much for putting up that quote from President Bush: when he said those words, it really touched me deeply and I think he said what we all were feeling and praying for with those words.
God Bless America. Long Live Israel.
Reagan quoted this poem (High Flight) by John Gillespie during the Challenger accident:
“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 falls 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”
Thank you for posting both the quote from today and the poem from 17 years ago. I think we all sit numb taking in the events of today and reflecting on where we were the last time we “saw a space shuttle fall out of the sky” (“19-something” by Mark Wills).
May their memories shine forever on, like the stars they longed to reach.
It’s sad that already people make light of their tragedy. Before I had even heard what had happened I heard a friend say that NASA stood for: “Needs Another Seven Astronauts”
assholes =/