NASA's first 50 years

[Mugwump]

I saw this again this morn'n on a NASA site......what a beautifully written poem....

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.

?High Flight?
by Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
No. 412 squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF)
Killed 11 December 1941 at age 19
A poem beloved by aviators and astronauts all

It's in this .pdf...
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/607087main_NASAsFirst50YearsHistoricalPerspectives-ebook.pdf

[PaulineMi]

That is beautiful. Not to trivialize it....it brings to mind the part of David Bowie's song where Major Tom is "floating in his tin can".  I've often wondered, when listening to the song, if "the sanctity of space" would bring the kind of feelings Officer Gillespie Magee describes in his poem