Ad Astra

Flew up so high above my head, I could never, ever see,

Even told me where to look, right near some big, old tree,

Maybe once, or so I thought, saw a tiny point of light,

Hard for me to believe, seven people, circling in the night.

When he was small, people would stop, hold their breath, stare,

Every time day came around, to launch a rocket through the air.

Dad smiled a little, looked at me, “That was so very long ago,”

Whisper: “Grissom, White, Chaffee, very first Apollo.”

I didn’t know those names, but he did, made happy disappear,

Explained: in school they wrote them, maybe calm that mission fear.

Said that childhood died a bit, when told of spacecrew’s fate.

They never got that hopeful letter; it arrived a week too late,

He spoke to me of Challenger, big grin on teacher Krista’s face,

Someone made one mistake, she was lost, before she started race.

A reminder of the danger, whenever man wants to stroke the sky,

I had to stop him, ask in wonder, then… should we even try?

Dad, it costs so much it hurts, still don’t know, why they had to die,

His eyes misted, when he glanced at me, took my hand with a sigh.

“Sometimes, necessary knowledge comes with heavy price.”

It must have been important, because he said it to me twice.

I said guess I’ll never know, ‘cause now they’ll take it all away,

Put his arm around me, leaned closer, “That’s why we have to stay.”

He talked some more ‘bout how things were, dreams of Jupiter and Mars,

Still don’t understand why he cried, when I said, I’d like to touch the stars.

For the crew of the Columbia, STS-107, February 2003: “Ad astra, per aspera”

Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark, Ilan Ramon