Once upon a lifetime I died a pioneer

I'm just going to pretend I haven't read the latest ballooning of the financial sector bailout and focus on something I got by email.  If you read this blog, odds are you got the same email, but it's worth a repeat.

MB sent it.

This week holds three anniversaries that should get more attention:

Forty two years ago, we lost Apollo 1
Twenty three years ago, we lost Challenger
Six years ago, we lost the Columbia.

Seventeen of the very best we could offer were destroyed pursing a shared dream of exploration.

Like all astronauts, they were exceptional. People who chose to challenge themselves, with advanced degrees, national service. The personification of what you reach for when you want to inspire your children. These people are heroes. They did what the rest of us feared to try.

- and they were all killed by the failings of others.

Thinking of these crews inspires equal measures of inspiration and fury. To work that hard, only to die on the dream's edge.

Our best deserve better.

MB sent the words to a song called Phoenix, by Julia Ecklar - that has just the right sentiment:

In a tower of flame in capsule 12
I was there
I know not where they laid my bones
It could be anywhere
But when fire and smoke had faded
The darkness left my sight
And I found my soul in a spaceship’s hull
Riding home on a trail of light

And my wings are made of tungsten
My flesh of glass and steel
I am the joy of Terra for the power that I wield
Once upon a lifetime I died a pioneer
Now I sing within a spaceship’s heart
Does anybody hear?

Before each morning’s launch
They know that I am there
"To the soul that warms this vessel’s hull"
They say a silent prayer
I am father, ship and spirit
Of the dream for which they strive
For I am man at the hands of man
See us rocket for the sky

And my wings are made of tungsten
My flesh of glass and steel
I am the joy of Terra for the power that I wield
Once upon a lifetime I died a pioneer
Now I sing within a spaceship’s heart
Does anybody hear?

My thunder rends the morning skies
Yes, I am here
Though lost to flame when I was man
I ride her without fear
For I am more than man now
And man built me with pride
I led the way and I lead the way
Of man's future in the sky

And my wings are made of tungsten
My flesh of glass and steel
I am the joy of Terra for the power that I wield
Once upon a lifetime I died a pioneer
Now I sing within a spaceship’s heart
Does anybody hear?

--------

Apollo 1 - January 27, 1967

• Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom
• Edward H. White II
• Roger B. Chaffee
  
  

Challenger - January 28, 1986

• Francis "Dick" Scobee
• Michael J. Smith
• Judith Resnik
• Ellison Onizuka
• Ronald McNair
• Gregory Jarvis
• Sharon Christa McAuliffe
  
  

Columbia - February 1, 2003

• Rick D. Husband
• William C. McCool
• Michael P. Anderson
• Ilan Ramon
• Kalpana Chawla
• David M. Brown
• Laurel Clark

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Late edit: 
It seemed stupid to attribute something to a pseudonym I created. The email was from MB.