To The Stars
A requiem for the space-shuttle ‘Challenger’
Michael Omer (1987)
Programme Notes:
First performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre, London in 1987, in memory of the crew who perished during the launch of the Space Shuttle ‘Challenger’ in January 1986. This accident, at that time the first to befall a NASA Space Shuttle, was a defining moment in manned space exploration and for a while all seemed lost. The loss was made an even sadder one - if that were possible - due to the fact that Christa McAuliffe, an ordinary school teacher, who had been chosen from some 11,000 applicants to train as an astronaut - was also on that mission. This piece is full of hope for the future, and is in thanksgiving for the lives of schoolteacher Christa and her six fellow astronauts.
2. Space-Time (Henry Vaughan) I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great Ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright, ...
And beneath it,
Time in hours, days, years
Driv’n by the Spheres
Like a vast shadow mov’d, In which the world
And all her train were hurl’d;
3. Towards The Secret Surface (Instrumental)
4. To The Stars (Michael Omer)
I am a wandering spaceman with my back towards the sun
And I’m looking down at earth and seeing you;
I’m floating to a far-off planet, far from everyone,
And it seems that there is nothing they can do;
But while I’m on my journey I am gazing at the stars
And I’m seeing oh so many different things...
I am a wandering spaceman with my back towards the sun
And I’m looking down at earth and seeing you.
CHORUS:
And so I’m floating to the stars
with oh so many miles to go
I’m floating onto Mars...
How many more worlds I don’t know,
Will I pass this way again...?
Will they have the answer then...?
I’m floating to the stars
I am a wandering spaceman with my spirit in the sky
And I’m learning as I go just what that means;
I used to teach the brave and tell them courage cannot die,
And now all that they’re left with are their dreams;
But a distant star is shining
That will guide them on their way,
A new challenger must always reappear...
I am a wandering spaceman with my back towards the sun
And I won’t be looking down at you again.
CHORUS:
And so I’m floating to the stars
with oh so many miles to go
I’m floating onto Mars...
how many more worlds I don’t know,
Will I pass this way again...?
Will they have the answer then...?
I’m floating to the stars
I’m floating to the stars
I’m floating
I’m floating
I’m floating to the stars
I’m reaching for the stars...[last time]
5. The Undiscovered Country
6. Across The Horizon (John Donne)
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou are not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me;
For rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and souls delivery.
Thou art slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.
Christa Mcauliffe - From Life Website 1996
Christa Mcauliffe - From Life Website 1996 During a tearful bon voyage at Concord (N.H.) High School, senior class president Carina Dolcino, 17, hugged her departing mentor. After receiving a school flag to take aboard the space shuttle, McAuliffe told the assembled students, "I really don't want to say goodbye to any of you people," adding that she would surely return for graduation ceremonies the following spring. It was in this same auditorium, four months later, that students,watching a television monitor, witnessed her spacecraft's explosion.
Making one last stop to lecture students at Concord High, McAuliffe described how she beat out 11,000 other candidates in a nationwide competition to become the first civilian in space. "I did a lot of things I tell you kids not to do," she joked, referring to her NASA application process. "I waited 'til the absolutely last minute to fill out the (form and have it) postmarked."
A week before she left to begin astronaut training in Houston, Christa McAuliffe posed with her family: husband Steve (then 37), son Scott, 9, and daughter Caroline, 6. In a 1985 interview with LIFE's David Friend, McAuliffe noted: "We haven't sat down with Scott and Caroline and said, 'Now you realize that there's X amount of pounds of thrust. And this can happen and that can happen.' If anything happened, I think my husband would have to deal with that as the time came. Caroline's more interested in what my (Houston) apartment looks like because Mommy has never lived away from home before. They're space kids. Every shuttle mission's been successful. 'The Twilight Zone' wasn't around with them. They think going up in space is neat. Within their lifetime there will bepaying passengers on the shuttle."
At mission control in Houston, McAuliffe was put through her paces as a fledgling astronaut. Space flight had long been one of her passions. "I can remember (being in) early elementary school when the Russians launched the first satellite," McAuliffe recalled at the time. "There was still so much unknown about space. People thought Mars was probably populated. We had this black-and-white television in our little ranch (house) in Framingham(Massachusetts) and we always used to sit on the floor two noses away. We were sitting there when (Alan) Shepard went up, really excited that man was actually able to go up and come back down and be okay. I have the LIFE magazine of the men walking on the moon. I have a box of papers at home of (my own press coverage too). When I'm sixty, maybe, I'll look at my pile of papers and wonder, 'What really happened that year?' "
In the payload bay of a shuttle training module, crew mates assembled for a LIFE portrait. From left to right: Commander Francis "Dick" Scobee, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Christa McAuliffe, Ronald McNair and pilot Michael Smith. (Astronaut Gregory Jarvis, also aboard the ill-fated mission, is not pictured here.) As the photo was being taken, McAuliffe pointed to the woodwork along the tail of the spacecraft mockup and laughed, "Look at all those cobwebs." Later, McAuliffe told LIFE: "I must admit I was a little concerned with how the crew was going to view me because I didn't know whether this (citizen-in-space) program had been kinda forced down their throats. But they were wonderful."
Christa McAuliffe and Barbara Morgan, a schoolteacher from McCall, Idaho, performed late afternoon stretching exercises before a three-mile jog near their apartment complex in Clear Lake City, Texas. Morgan was McAuliffe's space-flight "backup" and remains extremely active in NASA's Teacher-In-Space program.
Astronaut Judy Resnik, who had been scheduled to operate the shuttle bay's mechanical arm while in earth orbit, described the procedure to teachernaut McAuliffe and commander Dick Scobee. "This is the panel where we operate the 'robot arm,' " she explained, sounding like a teacher herself. "It has six joints, just like yours."
At Johnson Space Center in Houston, Christa McAuliffe sat in Building 5's mission simulator, a replica of the shuttle's nose-section and cockpit. Remarking on the whirlwind pace of space travel training, she told LIFE: "Sometimes when things get kind of frantic, it helps to call (my husband) Steve (back home) because I think he's got a real good sense of where everything's gonna be in a few years. He'll say, 'Christa, just hang in there. People are going to try to do a good job for you.' We sat around one night and thought that (eventually) people are goingto look back and say, 'I can't imagine there was a lot of excitement about HER going up' because space (travel) is going to be (so) commonplace.'
Christa Mcauliffe - From Life Website 1996 During a tearful bon voyage at Concord (N.H.) High School, senior class president Carina Dolcino, 17, hugged her departing mentor. After receiving a school flag to take aboard the space shuttle, McAuliffe told the assembled students, "I really don't want to say goodbye to any of you people," adding that she would surely return for graduation ceremonies the following spring. It was in this same auditorium, four months later, that students,watching a television monitor, witnessed her spacecraft's explosion.
A week before she left to begin astronaut training in Houston, Christa McAuliffe posed with her family: husband Steve (then 37), son Scott, 9, and daughter Caroline, 6. In a 1985 interview with LIFE's David Friend, McAuliffe noted: "We haven't sat down with Scott and Caroline and said, 'Now you realize that there's X amount of pounds of thrust. And this can happen and that can happen.' If anything happened, I think my husband would have to deal with that as the time came. Caroline's more interested in what my (Houston) apartment looks like because Mommy has never lived away from home before. They're space kids. Every shuttle mission's been successful. 'The Twilight Zone' wasn't around with them. They think going up in space is neat. Within their lifetime there will bepaying passengers on the shuttle."
At mission control in Houston, McAuliffe was put through her paces as a fledgling astronaut. Space flight had long been one of her passions. "I can remember (being in) early elementary school when the Russians launched the first satellite," McAuliffe recalled at the time. "There was still so much unknown about space. People thought Mars was probably populated. We had this black-and-white television in our little ranch (house) in Framingham(Massachusetts) and we always used to sit on the floor two noses away. We were sitting there when (Alan) Shepard went up, really excited that man was actually able to go up and come back down and be okay. I have the LIFE magazine of the men walking on the moon. I have a box of papers at home of (my own press coverage too). When I'm sixty, maybe, I'll look at my pile of papers and wonder, 'What really happened that year?' " 
In the payload bay of a shuttle training module, crew mates assembled for a LIFE portrait. From left to right: Commander Francis "Dick" Scobee, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Christa McAuliffe, Ronald McNair and pilot Michael Smith. (Astronaut Gregory Jarvis, also aboard the ill-fated mission, is not pictured here.) As the photo was being taken, McAuliffe pointed to the woodwork along the tail of the spacecraft mockup and laughed, "Look at all those cobwebs." Later, McAuliffe told LIFE: "I must admit I was a little concerned with how the crew was going to view me because I didn't know whether this (citizen-in-space) program had been kinda forced down their throats. But they were wonderful." 
Christa McAuliffe and Barbara Morgan, a schoolteacher from McCall, Idaho, performed late afternoon stretching exercises before a three-mile jog near their apartment complex in Clear Lake City, Texas. Morgan was McAuliffe's space-flight "backup" and remains extremely active in NASA's Teacher-In-Space program.
At Johnson Space Center in Houston, Christa McAuliffe sat in Building 5's mission simulator, a replica of the shuttle's nose-section and cockpit. Remarking on the whirlwind pace of space travel training, she told LIFE: "Sometimes when things get kind of frantic, it helps to call (my husband) Steve (back home) because I think he's got a real good sense of where everything's gonna be in a few years. He'll say, 'Christa, just hang in there. People are going to try to do a good job for you.' We sat around one night and thought that (eventually) people are goingto look back and say, 'I can't imagine there was a lot of excitement about HER going up' because space (travel) is going to be (so) commonplace.'