This Is Earth Again, The Earth Where

After My Death, The Molecules Of My Being Will Return To The Earth And Sky. They Came From The Stars. I Am Of The Stars.

At The End Of The First Half-century Of Engine-driven Flight, We Are Confronted With The Stark Fact That The Historical Significance Of Aircraft Has Been Primarily Military And Destructive.

A Certain Amount Of Danger Is Essential To The Quality Of Life.

I May Be Flying A Complicated Airplane, Rushing Through Space, But In This Cabin I'm Surrounded By Simplicity And Thoughts Set Free Of Time. How Detached The Intimate Things Around Me Seem From The Great World Down Below. How Strange Is This Combination Of Proximity And Separation. That Ground - Seconds Away - Thousands Of Miles Away. This Air, Stirring Mildly Around Me. That Air, Rushing By With The Speed Of A Tornado, An Inch Beyond. These Minute Details In My Cockpit. The Grandeur Of The World Outside. The Nearness Of Death. The Longness Of Life.

I Realized That The Future Of Aviation, To Which I Had Devoted So Much Of My Life, Depended Less On The Perfection Of Aircraft Than On Preserving The Epoch-evolved Environment Of Life, And That This Was True Of All Technological Progress.