Today, January 28, is the 39th anniversary of the the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, which exploded 73 seconds into its flight killing all seven astronauts aboard including teacher Christa McAuliffe. I was an Air Force major working in Space Command Headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado, at the time.

Ronald Reagan’s speech, written by Peggy Noonan, is considered a classic, and it ends:

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.”

The quoted portion comes from “High Flight” a 1941 poem by John Gillespie Magee, Jr., a pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force. He was killed three months later in a training accident.

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 wind-swept 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.

The last line of the poem and the speech was the inspiration for the January 29, 1986, editorial cartoon by Chuck Asay of the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Illustration by Chuck Asay © Pikes Peak Library District, 448-35.

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. (Hebrews 11.13, NKJV)