Words I never thought I'd say...

[rivka]

Bush's address is really beautiful. It hits exactly the right tone.

These men and women assumed great risk in this service to all humanity. In an age when space flight has come to seem almost routine, it is easy to overlook the dangers of travel by rocket and the difficulties of navigating the fierce outer atmosphere of the earth.

These astronauts knew the dangers, and they faced them willingly, knowing they had a high and noble purpose in life. Because of their courage and daring and idealism, we will miss them all the more. [...]

The cause in which they died will continue. Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on.

Comments

[almeda.livejournal.com]

The only problem I have with what Bush said was the overweening religiosity of whole chunks of it. You can offer spiritual solace without giving a small sermon based on Isaiah, or talking about Christian afterlives. Hell, Martin Luther King regularly gave more nondenominational speeches than that, and he was a minister.