THAT WAS A NEW ERA

Press, 18 April 1981, Page 14

THAT WAS A NEW ERA

By

WHIM WHAM

Ten thousand million Dollars Can also be expressed By 10 Noughts, a ? and a 1, If the briefest and best Isn’t something like 10 (U.S.) Billion Or why not 10 Milliards? The Million And its Multiples muddle the Mind More and More — don’t You find?

That was the Cost, so They tell us, Of 1 Space Shuttle Flight — I believe every dizzying Digit, • They just HAVE to be right — Besides, what’s the Use of pretending, Having watched the Contraption ascending, In Smoke with a Hiss and a Roar, That we’ve seen Nothing like it before?

Do I think of that earlier ROCKET, George Stephenson’s Flier? It steamed and it smoked, it had Water ’ In its Boiler and Coals on its Fire! People, said, it can’t possibly GO, But it did, and the old Status Quo Went up in Smoke — just like This! With the usual Roar and a Hiss.

A few New Eras and several Wars and Disasters later, We’ve done It again, the Performance Isn’t that much greater — And riskier, each Time the Figure, The Dollars, the Millions, gets bigger And the Planet gets smaller — and Space Is the Smile on Infinity’s Face.