Rest In Peace
David C Kifer
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 sunsplit 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.
The space shuttle
Columbia, traveling 12,500 miles per hour as it re-entered
Earth's atmosphere after a 16-day science mission,
disintegrated in flames 200,000 feet above north central
Texas today with seven astronauts aboard.
--http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10088-2003Feb1.html
I am getting very tired of waking up to see bad news on the idiot box.
--
Dave
"Tam multi libri, tam breve tempus!"
(Et brevis pecunia.) [Et breve spatium.]
Xjr3000
>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 sunsplit 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.
>
> The space shuttle
> Columbia, traveling 12,500 miles per hour as it >re-entered
> Earth's atmosphere after a 16-day science >mission,
> disintegrated in flames 200,000 feet above north >central
> Texas today with seven astronauts aboard.
>--http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10088-2
>03Feb1.html
A pennant universal, subtly waving all
time, o'er all brave sailors,
All seas, all ships.
---Walt Whitman
--Jay
Erica
> time, o'er all brave sailors,
> All seas, all ships.
> ---Walt Whitman
> --Jay
I watched a special News Report on television this Sunday morning
and was just sitting sadly and quietly, when they returned to their
scheduled program, which just happened to be Jules Verne's Twenty
Thousand Leagues under the Sea.
Australia is still reeling from a train derailment which took 9
lives two days ago and I could only think on man and machine,
technological advancement and the inherent dangers of immense
power. The Aussies were just civilians travelling to work and
university....the astronauts were pioneers in science and
technology - we mourn them all.
OBQ
And I also hope that his [Captain Nemo] powerful vessel has
conquered the sea at its most terrible gulf, and that the Nautilus
has survived where so many other vessels have been lost! If it be
so- if Captain Nemo still inhabits the ocean, his adopted country,
may hatred be appeased in that savage heart! May the contemplation
of so many wonders extinguish forever the spirit of vengeance! May
the judge disappear, and the philosopher continue the peaceful
exploration of the sea! If his destiny be strange, it is also
sublime. Have I not understood it myself? Have I not lived ten
months of this unnatural life? And to the question asked by
Ecclesiastes 3,000 years ago, "That which is far off and exceeding
deep, who can find it out?" two men alone of all now living have the
right to give an answer - Captain Nemo and myself
~ Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Erica
_____________________
Frank Lynch
shuttle flight is about 1 in 145, or 99.3 percent. That compares with
about 1 chance in 2 million of a catastrophe on a commercial flight,
according to estimates made in the late 1990's.
-- JAMES BARRON,
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/01/national/01cnd-shut.html?pagewanted=all&position=top
For sorrow there is no remedy provided by nature; it is often
occasioned by accidents irreparable, and dwells upon objects that have
lost or changed their existence; it requires what it cannot hope, that
the laws of the universe should be repealed; that the dead should
return, or the past should be recalled.
-- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #47
http://www.samueljohnson.com/sorrow.html#624
Frank Lynch
The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page is at:
http://www.samueljohnson.com/
Michael Conover
Michael Anderson
What they said was nothing that I guess I want to believe.
-Anderson's sister Joanne
David Brown
"As much as we've enjoyed it up here, we're also starting to look
forward to seeing all the people back on Earth that we miss and love so
much."
Kalpana Chawla
Chawla said that as the shuttle repeatedly passed over India, especially
New Delhi, she pointed it out to the other crew members and said, "I lived
near there."
Laurel Clark
There was a moth in there, and it still had its wings crumpled up, and
it was just starting to pump its wings up," she told a reporter. "Life
continues in lots of places, and life is a magical thing."
Rick Husband
Risa and David Jones, who are best friends with Rick and his wife, said
they watched Columbia fly over Lubbock, Texas Saturday morning.
"It was just a streak across the sky, and afterwards David left a
message on Rick's home phone, saying 'We saw you this morning,'" Risa Jones
said.
William McCool
"I'll tell you, there's nothing better than listening to a good album
and looking out the windows and watching the world go by while you pedal on
the bike."
Ilan Ramon
He carried a small pencil drawing titled "Moon Landscape" by Peter Ginz,
a 14-year-old Jewish boy killed at Auschwitz.
---Michael
David C Kifer
>
> David Brown
> "As much as we've enjoyed it up here, we're also starting to look
> forward to seeing all the people back on Earth that we miss and love so
> much."
The astronauts had been preparing to return to Earth after a 16-day
scientific mission.
Hours before the disaster, crew member David Brown asked ground control:
"Do we have to come back?"
-- "DEATH AT 207,000FT"
http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/news/page.cfm?objectid=12595134&method=full&siteid=86024
No, it seems you don't have to....
Talk about 'famous last words'....
[p&e]
Martin DeMello
Prometheus, they say, brought god's fire down to man,
And we caught it, tamed it, trained it since our history began.
Now we're going back to heaven just to look him in the eye,
And there's a thunder 'cross the land, and a fire in the sky!
Gagarin was the first, back in nineteen sixty-one,
When like Icarus, undaunted, he climbed to reach the sun.
And he knew he might not make it, for it's never hard to die,
But he lifted off the pad and rode a fire in the sky.
Yet a higher goal was calling, and we vowed to reach it soon,
And we gave ourselves a decade to put fire on the moon.
And Apollo told the world, "We can do it if we try"
For there was one small step, and a fire in the sky.
Now two decades since Gagarin, twenty years to the day,
We've a shuttle named Columbia to open up the way.
And they said she's just a truck, she's a truck that's aiming high!
See the jets burning. See her fire in the sky.
Yet the gods do not give lightly of the powers they have made
And with Challenger and seven, once again the price is paid
Though a nation watched her falling, yet a world could only cry
As they passed from us to glory, riding fire in the sky.
Now the rest is up to us and there's a future to be won.
We must turn our faces outward. We will do what must be done.
For no cradle lasts forever. Every bird must learn to fly,
And we're going to the stars. See our fire in the sky.
Yes, we're going to the stars. See our fire in the sky!
-- Jordin Kare
(mp3 available at http://www.prometheus-music.com/eli/virtual.html)
SteveMR200
<ei...@chariotXCAPS.net.au> wrote:
>Australia is still reeling from a train derailment which took 9
>lives two days ago and I could only think on man and machine,
>technological advancement and the inherent dangers of immense
>power. The Aussies were just civilians travelling to work and
>university....the astronauts were pioneers in science and
>technology - we mourn them all.
My advice to any traveler who is traveling in order
to learn would be: "Fight tooth and nail to be
permitted to travel in what is technically the least
efficient way."
--Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975)
_Experiences_ [1969]
--
Steve
SteveMR200
<dki...@sky-access.com> wrote:
>The astronauts had been preparing to return to Earth after
>a 16-day scientific mission. Hours before the disaster,
>crew member David Brown asked ground control:
>"Do we have to come back?"
>
>No, it seems you don't have to....
>Talk about 'famous last words'....
We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified.
--Aesop (c. 550 BC), _The Old Man and Death_
--
Steve
Grace McGarvie
I realize this is not a 'nugget", but thought many of you might be
interested in the e-mail I received this morning from my nephew, Cody,
who works at NASA - Grace:
I was sitting in Mission Control when it all happened. It was surreal.
Nobody had any idea. It was a freaking picture perfect flight.
Trajectory was spot-on nominal. Until it just stopped.
I was sitting in Mission Control with the usual cast of characters who
support the Shuttle's critical flight phases for the various flight
critical systems, watching a perfect ground track and watching two
clocks -- the countdown to AOS for the C-band tracking station MILA, and
the countdown to touchdown itself. When the first clock counted up to
zero and went positive, we worried that the C-band radar at MILA was bad
somehow, because it couldn't lock onto a signal. We didn't register that
the loop chatter about hydraulics and tire pressure were connected to
the fact that the groundtrack had stopped over Texas. There was a
horrible, confused, minute while each of us, sitting in stunned silence
put two and two together in our heads. The touchdown clock counted up to
zero and then went positive. No Columbia.
And then the contingency procedures kicked in.
If had any doubts about the dedication and consummate professionalism of
the people I work with in the space program, they're gone now. Everyone
went into the procedures they had trained for and drilled over and
simultaneously dreaded and had faith they'd never have to do. They
worked the contingency checklist with the utmost efficiency, all the
while wiping tears from their eyes. I could feel the shock and stunned
sadness in the air. But I could also feel the hardening resolve and the
pulling together.
From the cafeteria people who started churning out free food to the
Control Center personnel who had been up all night and were suddenly
facing a very long day, to those of us who came in to babysit systems
that worked so flawlessly that they hardly ever needed babysitting,
everybody sprang up to do whatever they could to help. And for most of
us, helping meant staying out of the way of the people in the headsets,
who were rushing around with moist eyes, set jaws, and resolute stares.
Paying attention in case our little part of this mountain of Shuttle
technical support is needed for something -- anything that could help.
But all most of us could do was watch and pray.
I poked my head in on the NAV console a few times. Nope, Trajectory
Server was working great. One of the controllers told me that my
tracking data table had logged over a thousand batches of data and
rolled over succesfully for the second time in the Shuttle Program's
history. (When the shuttle passes over a tracking station or within
reach of a tracking sattelite, it produces a "batch" of data that
navigators use.) I told him, "That's great, but I'd give anything to
have that last goddamned batch." That C-band batch that was supposed to
be over MILA.
I still can't believe it. I'm still in shock.
Pray hard.
Cody
--
Amazing Grace's Eclectic Quotation Collection
*100,000 quotations, proverbs, by people of all philosophies, ages and
cultures. For more info. or free sample of one category, send a personal
e-mail: gem...@attbi.com
. . . Grace McGarvie . . .
. . Plymouth,Mn. 55447 U.S.A.
The Sanity Inspector
> 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 sunsplit 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.
When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with
your eyes turned skyward; for there you have been, and there you will
always long to return.
-- Leonardo da Vinci
> I am getting very tired of waking up to see bad news on the idiot box.
The millennium is certainly off to a pretty sucky start.
--
bruce
The dignified don't even enter in the game.
-- The Jam
David C Kifer
>
> The millennium is certainly off to a pretty sucky start.
As every millennium has started thus, I suppose we should not have been
surprised. The world has always teetered on the razor edge of order between
chaos on both sides, getting bloodied just trying to remain on the edge,
toppling off from time to time and getting even more bloodied trying to climb
back up.
And yet, here we are...
obq:
"What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos,
what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, feeble earthworm,
depository of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error, the glory and the shame
of the universe."
--Blaise Pascal , _Pensees_ No. 434 (1670)
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.
Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confus'd;
Still by himself abus'd, or disabus'd;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
--Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, ep. 2
[p&e]
SteveMR200
(The Sanity Inspector) wrote:
>The millennium is certainly off to a pretty sucky start.
An ill beginning hath an ill ending.
--John Clarke (1596-1658)
_Proverbs: English and Latine_ [1639]
--
Steve