[simpits-tech] One bad day- A Columbia Tribute

[John P. Miguez]

I wrote this this morning to send to my non-flying friends.  I think that
you guys will understand and appricate.

John

Yesterday truly was a bad day for the world, America and especially Texas.
Two of the Columbia's dead were Texas natives.  As we mourn the deaths of
Columbia's crew, we must remember that nothing worth doing is done without
risk.  The crew freely embraced the risk and died doing something they
loved.



As someone who was bitten by the flying bug at a young age and spent years
flying high-performance aircraft, I can identify with the loss felt by the
NASA people.  I have lost four good friends to aircraft accidents.  Each of
their deaths shocked, stunned and deeply saddened me. The world of flying is
really a small world.  Those of us who see flying as an expression of life,
rather than transportation, are a fraternity of brothers and sisters.   I
saw and heard in the eyes and voices of the NASA officials the same pain,
shock and disbelief that I experienced when my friends died.



The poem which most expresses to many pilots what it feels like to fly is
"High Flight," written by 19 year old Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee,
Jr., in 1941.  A few months after penning this poem, his Spitfire fighter
was involved in a mid-air collision over England.  He died in the accident.
It is a poem that has since touched the hearts and souls of generations of
pilots.





"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 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.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr.



Like, John G. Magee, the seven members of STS-107 were fortunate to have
seen and touched the "face of God."  They did not die in vain.  They died as
they lived, doing what they loved, living a dream.  Let us pray for them and
their families.  Let us also pray that we can embrace life in the manner of
these seven men and women, and when our time of death arrives, we too will
have lived our dream and made a difference in the world.