Dear Stan 0147,
You are about to embark on a journey of such significance and magnitude that it shall become one of the more memorable accomplishments of your entire life. You will meet amazing humans and do and see things of which you have never dreamed. You will join the brother/sisterhood of those of us who feel what John Gillespie Magee, Jr. expressed with such great and honest eloquence:
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 wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or 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.
Welcome to the SKY, Brother! Don't run out of altitude and ideas at the same time!
- Ed