I wrote this poem before the Intuitive Machines launch to describe my excitement on working on it on console. I originally shared it with my company coworkers. This picture is one taken shortly after launch vehicle separation on February 15, 2024. You can see Australia clearly depicted.
Come February — give me your darkness and coldness
We can be warmed by the roar of a fiery liftoff
— every second of sound a stirring symphony
like heavenly fire doused on mundane kerosene
Start of an odyssey across the vastness of space
— a boundless cold hard vacuum
deter not our intrepid vessel
Its every tangible wire and intangible line of software
resonates with the touch of the hands, hearts, and minds
of a myriad of souls over the spans of countless hours
to turn soft conceptions of immaterial fantasy
into the hard metal of material reality
To see our dreams take first flight
… I pause here
Predictive words can only go so far
and indubitably fail to capture
feelings that require
the true trajectory of experience
