The naming of ships

The spaceship lifted sputnik (mankind’s

best friend), a companion in orbit like

the small dog circles the big dog’s path

[remember (Dezik, Lisa, Bars, Lisichka,

Laika, Pchyolka, Mushka) all the little dogs

who died for science. (In the West, we

killed monkeys [but named them less well:

Albert I, Albert II, Albert III, Albert IV].

None lived to eep the tale.)]. We sent men,

eventually, and named capsule and rocket

for gods (or near-gods): Gemini, Mercury, 

Apollo, Titan, Saturn. There was romance

then [fantasy enough to flow along un-

contoured control panels, switches and

foil; babyfood through a tube was ambrosia

for these astro- (not argo-) nauts], danger

too: Mercury leads souls to the afterlife.

The Gemini, Castor and Pollux, one mortal

and one not, forced to separate (although

there are other ways people have the story

go). Best then to abandon myth. STS

is a good name for a ship. And Skylab

and missions named “42-D.” The public

[having learned no lessons (and loving TV)]

namedthe first shuttle Enterprise, gleeful

with Star Trek nerd whimsy; Columbia,

dream of the patriotic dove; Challenger

shaking its fist at the sky [and seeming

to attract the gods’ ire in reply (perhaps

Icarus would have better suited that craft?)];

Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour spoke

of other worlds, better worlds, lost worlds,

found worlds, the work it takes to cultivate

such wonders, but no other craft was ever

better named than mir at the end of a long

cold war, or the International Space Station

sounding so “Grand Central to the Stars.”

1. naughts and crosses

2. gem of the ocean

3. world/peace