The Saturn V was the biggest hunk of junk to ever loft humanity toward the stars. This mass of piping and wires was just finely tuned enough not to shake itself to shreds. Spewing, shrieking and screaming, it sears into the sky, because searing is all it knows how to do. By brute force, we splash about on the shores of the cosmic ocean.

I love the Saturn V like I love a child’s drawing, for even stick figures betray a fearsome intellect behind those big eyes. No other creature can produce such a powerful abstraction. And whether we are wielding crayon or welding torch, we will slash our way through the present into the future.

One day, our descendants will glide along a gleaming silky space elevator, gaze over their dominion, and wonder how their grandparents ever made it here in their rickety model-T’s.

Child, we got here by burning. We burned all the coal of the carboniferous period, we burned the midnight oil, and we burned within our hearts. We learned to let the sun fuel the fire, and then we burned with our minds. We burned ourselves out, and rested in the arms of lovers. We burned our relationships, and turned ourselves back to our work. The cycle went on, and we raised our collective higher. Though fuel is consumed through action, the soul is not; the soul only grows. Look up, child, and carry the torch.