The Shuttle Challenger Tragedy: Reagan as Mourner in Chief

My latest on Time.com. Where were you when the Challenger exploded? And do you remember Ronald Reagan’s speech from the oval office or his eulogy at Cape Canaveral?

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Here is the original sonnet from whence the “surly bonds of earth” came:
High Flight

by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

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 windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor 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.