By James H. Burns: I’ve been visited by a thought all this late evening:

With absolutely no disrespect to Scott Carpenter, one of the few astronauts it’s been my honor to meet…

We should have, of course, had our cities on the moon decades ago, and all sorts of vast domains in orbit, and even, by now, some kind of settlement on Mars.

Some of those frontiers would long have been around, enough perhaps, to have ghosts.

Which makes me wonder:

When one of our spacefarers passes, is he, or she, finally free to visit the heavenly destinations that had been denied them on earth?

Are ALL of those who longed for the stars, so many of them our friends, able to walk the plains of Phobos or Titan, or finally smile at an ascension of our world?

Or must a spirit wait for a place inhabited by those who remember him, and the dreams that remain an inspiration…?