hisa

I have no idea why this day is so important to me. I'm not an aviator. I'm not an astronaut. I'm not even a scientist. The mission, if not for it's failure, would hardly have been noteworthy in the annals of Human Spaceflight. There were some firsts, but none of them astounding. There was no great race. Challenger was not going anywhere we had not been before. Yet it still hits me like a punch in the gut, every year.

I think it has something to do with the wonder of my childhood. Everything that first captured me about the unknown was so tied to spaceflight. The unexplored frontier, the blinking, unseen edge of potential. The massive size of the Universe. Something about it restores my faith in God (if thats not too oxymoronic and antithetical).

I don't want to wax too much more on this, so I'll leave you with a list of names and some of the aviator's poem.

STS-51

Michael J Smith
Dick Scobee
Ronald McNair
Ellison Onizuka
Christa McAuliffe
Gregory Jarvis
Judith Resnick


"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, 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."