The High Untresspassed Sanctity of Space
Nonfiction from Lightspeed Magazine. This is well worth reading:
The High Untresspassed Sanctity of Space: Seven True Stories about Eugene Cernan by Genevieve Valentine
It is a brief reprise of the career of Astronaut Cernan, the Last Man on the Moon.
The poem to which the title makes reference is High Flight. It used to play on my local television station at the close of the broadcast day, back in the days when stations had closes of broadcast days. It is something of an anthem for Science Fiction fans and the astronauts and airmen who make Science Fiction dreams come true.
High Flight
by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
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 untrespassed sanctity of space
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
