An elegant escape

The space shuttle Discovery launched off to space at 7:42pm Sunday evening. These pictures are from our back yard. I never cease to be totally amazed and enthralled that man can pull off something like this. Its awesome.




The picture above you can just see the fuel rockets break off..totally amazing. The picture below you can still see the shuttle minutes after its launch it is a tiny speck that looks like a star.... They say at this point the shuttle is well over the New Jersey shore line! (holy cow)( you can see it above the cloud formation to the left of the tree) FYI it goes 17,500 miles per hour!!!!!!!

I put one of my favorite poems of all time below. To me it is the stuff real poetry is made of. Not to many people know that as a child I was obsessed with wanting to be an astronaut. I went to space camp in Alabama. I even memorized tons of terms. I was ridiculous. When I read this poem I almost felt like I was there with them.....

High Flight

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 ever 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.

— John Gillespie Magee, Jr