There may still be orbiting the Earth a small space capsule with a dog named Laika.  The Russians sent the animal up to see if cosmic radiation would instantly kill anything  living which left the Earth's atmosphere.  The little dog died, but not from cosmic rays.  Of all the deaths associated with our journey outwards, that is the only one which horrifies me.  Laika didn't volunteer for anything.  The luck of the draw, fate, put the small black and white creature in the cold depths of space where it died alone and terrified.
   The Columbia astronauts, on the other hand, volunteered for their mission.  They knew the risks, and accepted them.  So it was with all the shuttle astronauts, and those who died in earlier missions, even back to the test pilots in cloth-winged aircraft who in the early 20th Century proved or disproved the design alterations that were the early knowledge on the path from the beach at Kittyhawk to the moon. 

   The tops of our great mountains are the gravesites of legendary climbers.  The poles hold in frozen glory the bones of Scott and others who sought to extend the reach of Man.  Captain Cook was eaten by cannibals.  Vikings died on their way to New England.  The Oregon Trail is laid on a roadbed of perished pioneers.  The road to freedom for American slaves is littered with the bodies of legions of white northern soldiers.  The world's original road to freedom, itself, was constructed on the bodies of the farmers of Lexington and Concord, and before that on the bodies of Greeks on the plain of Marathon and before that in the ripped out hearts of mystics, acolytes, prophets and dreamers beginning with the first man or woman who resisted being taken slave in the land of Africa where slavery began. 

   Ever shall it be that a price must be paid to see new vistas, to find new lands, to learn what is not known by going somewhere in person.  Little Laika, I will forever grieve because I have a heart, and dislike the idea of volunteering others for dangerous missions.  The courage and lives of the Columbia astronauts I will forever celebrate because I am proud of them, and consider them marvelous.   They were in the spirit of their namesake, Christopher Columbus, volunteer voyagers on a great sea, looking for the future.
   They finished their journey on Earth while returning to it.  I am glad for them that it worked out that way.
   There are many cold and lonely deaths awaiting the courageous who will stretch the human realm to the planets, and perhaps in time, to the stars. (Photo: The pillars of M16, where stars are born.)

   To those who say, let us spend the money on the chldren and keep safe here on Earth, I say, we must learn the way out for the children, and safety is an illusion.
   Go ye and seek, remembering that you are standing on the shoulders of giants.  All are part of the adventure, the giant search for the meaning of meaning, itself.
   Godspeed to each who searches.

OMED: This was written while I was watching the CBS program 60 Minutes, and it was interesting to see the closing segment by Andy Rooney which was aired just minutes after I put this one online.  Using the same topic as a theme, we had similar thoughts, but finished differently.  With apologies to the television icon, our ending is better.  Perhaps Andy's soul is not stirred by the stars, for his essay was about courage, and ours is about courage and the human quest.  The lights of New York perhaps dim the stars to his eyes but the lights of New York are pitiful candles that have glittered for a mere hundred years.  One small and humble star in the class of our sun sends out more light in a second than all the campfires, streetlights, marquees, headlights, lamps and lighthouses of humans have emitted in a million years. 

If memory serves, there are more than a hundred billion suns (of which ours is a small one)  in the Milky Way galaxy, and roughly as many galaxies in the cosmos as the Milky Way has stars.  If we find one habitable world for every million suns, and one race that has built a city for every million of those habitable worlds, the universe contains at least ten thousand civilizations the equal of ours.   New York calls to men, but the stars call to Man. 

© 2003 Oregon Magazine