21 years ago today

[mdlbear]

Keep the Dream Alive
© 1986, 2003 Stephen Savitzky.

In the year of Nineteen Eighty Six, 
On an icy winter's day
The shuttle Challenger left the pad
And started on her way
The shuttle Challenger lifted off
With seven brave women and men 
In flames they died just ten miles high, 
And never came home again.

    Never came home again,
    In flames they died just ten miles high
    And never came home again.

And seventeen years later
Nearly forty miles high,
Columbia's wreckage wrote a line
Of fire across the sky
But long before the jetstream blew
Her trail of smoke away
We saw that it  marked a highway
We would travel again some day.

    (2003--02--01)

So never say that they died in vain
Nor stay on the ground afraid,
The stars are one step closer now
Because of the price we've paid.
And mourn for the shuttles that fly no more,
And weep for the friends we've lost,
But to leave the Earth will still be worth
Whatever it has to cost.

And fire no guns in last salute
But let the rockets roar,
And reach for the wide and starry sky
As Challenger did before.
And raise no earthbound slab of stone, 
To mark the place they lie,
But write their names with a shuttle's flames,
Ten miles in the sky.

And here's a toast to the shuttle crews
Who died for the dream of space
And all the pioneers who have
The sky for a resting place.
No grave nor tombstone do they need,
For their memory will survive
As long as we fly beyond the sky
And keep the dream alive.

    Keep the dream alive,
    As long as we fly beyond the sky
    And keep the dream alive.

    Keep the dream alive,
    Let the shuttles fly beyond the sky
    And keep the dream alive.

[ogg file] [Wikipedia article]

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Something I wrote a year ago today, in a comment to cflute:

Yet the Gods do not give lightly of the powers they have made.
And with Challenger and seven, once again the price is paid.
Though a nation watched her falling, yet a world could only cry.
As they passed from us to glory, riding fire in the sky.
-- Jordin Kare

(to the same tune)

o/~ Once again we are reminded, after many years have passed
that though shuttles gave us glory, they were not built to last.
Once again we lose good people, once again we question, "Why?"
as Columbia is lost! See her scattered 'cross the sky....

[angry bridge, ending on a mournful note]

But out there in the desert, our dreams are not in vain
We're going back to heaven, with a space ship and a plane
And the first ship won't make orbit, but her dreams are aiming high
For SpaceShip One, see her fire in the sky! o/~

The dream is alive... and still making friends. Since I wrote that, Blue Origin has flown, and Peter Garrison got a glimpse of Space Ship Two becoming a reality.

In many ways there is much more hope in the world today than there was last year. May it ever be so.

[chaoswolf]

A very awesome comment, techno. I can't recall if I've friended you, but if I haven't yet, can I? Please?

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

But of course; I've long since friended you. You do your father credit, in your own inimitable way.

[mdlbear]

Thank you.

[patoadam]

This is the one Challenger song that I still remember, and that still can bring a tear to my eye, after 21 years.

[mdlbear]

Thanks. There were a couple of other songs I remember from that concert, but none of those were written for the occasion.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this.

[mdlbear]

You're welcome.