"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp. Or what's a heaven for?" Robert Browning
In the words of the prophet Isaiah, "Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing."
The same Creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today.
The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth; yet we can pray that all are safely home. President Bush, Feb. 1
We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people…
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too…
Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."
Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked. President Kennedy, Address at Rice University on the Nation's Space Effort, Sept. 12, 1962
The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive… G. K. Chesterton
Godspeed, Columbia.
Moon Landscape, drawn by 14-year-old Auschwitz victim Petr Ginz, and carried into space on the Columbia by Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon. More from Rod Dreher.