In Memoriam

High Flight

(Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee, No. 412 Squadron RCAF, KIA 12/11/1941)

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, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

In respectful memory of:

Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White II, Roger Chaffee: Apollo 1, 1/27/1967

Vladimir Komarov: Soyuz 1, 4/23/1967

Major Michael J. Adams, USAF: X-15 Flight #191, 11/15/1967

Georgi Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, Viktor Patsayev: Soyuz 11/Salyut 1, 6/30/1971

Dick Scobee, Michael Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judy Resnik, Ron McNair, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis: Challenger, 1/28/1986

Rick Husband, William McCool, Dave Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson, Laurel Clark, Ilan Ramon: Columbia, 2/1/2003

Michael Alsbury, VSS Enterprise Flight PF04, 10/31/2014

Requiem aeternam donum est, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.