Give Us, O God, The Vision Which

We Have To Earn Our Wings Every Day.

Astronauts: Space Activists.

There Is Just No Way That I Can Understand In God's Green Earth That An Airline Could Undertake With Its Normal Procedures The Operation Of The Space Shuttle. . . . You Don't Put Parachutes On Airliners Because The Margin Of Safety Is Built Into The Machine. The 727 Airplanes We Fly Are Proven Vehicles With Levels Of Safety And Redundancy Built In. The Shuttle Is A Hand-made Piece Of Experimental Gear.

It's A Vast, Lonely, Forbidding Expanse Of Nothing Rather Like Clouds And Clouds Of Pumice Stone. And It Certainly Does Not Appear To Be A Very Inviting Place To Live Or Work.

The View Of The Earth From The Moon Fascinated Me -- A Small Disk, 240,000 Miles Away. . . . Raging Nationalistic Interests, Famines, Wars, Pestilence, Don't Show From That Distance.