Lost Astronauts: Salute to the Explorers

NASA held its Day of Remembrance for the astronauts who died in service to exploration: two Shuttle crews and the crew of Apollo 1, 17 brilliant, accomplished men and women.  While all three events involved technical failures on the spacecraft, all were, inexcusably, failures of management and leadership by people whose #1 job was making sure that, as astronauts braved the dangers of space, they had the safest possible equipment to take them there and back. 

The Explorers

Souls departing Earthbound life

Rise to heaven’s plane

Soldier, sailor, priest, or king

The destiny's the same

But in an even higher realm

With stars always in view

Meet those lost in exploration

Remembering how they flew

Komarov toasts Gus Grissom

And Resnik laughs with Clark

Ramon and Chalwa share a tale

As they look beyond the dark

Adams shares his glory days

With Husband and McNair

And always they urge us on

To rise above the air.

Don’t cling to mother Earth, they’d say

God has given us the stars

There’s a reason we aspire

To cross the celestial bar

We gave our lives

(we don’t regret)

To push back the frontier

Remember us by challenging

And conquering your fears

Patseyev, Onizuka

Anderson and Brown

Salute each new endeavor

That lifts us from the ground

To every new thrust into space

They raise their glasses high

And remind us we were always meant

To voyage beyond the sky.