Spacemen are born

By BOLLING BRANHAM
Everyone knows that spacemen are born—not made. But grav-bound Trase Barnes, No. 1 v.p. of Air-Lines, Inc., bet his arrogant soul that he could shoot Saturn's rings—and live.
O, Jewel of the Eastern Sky,
O, Mother of many things,
Bring home your sons to safety,
From the Stars to Saturn's rings....
Curse it, I am too old to go to space, and why can't I be content with that?
Must I hear the spacemen's songs and the stories they tell, so that the breath of romance aches each day in my bones? For here on Earth's cool moon I am as close to the sky as I need be, and the sky is close enough to me.
But those spacemen who go to Saturn—ah, they have viewed a scene that exists nowhere else in all our universe, and I think they delight in singing the Saturn Home Song in my ears and telling me of the wonders of Saturn's skies.
For have you ever been to Saturn? No, you needn't go away, for in a moment I'm going to tell the story of Trase Barnes. But in order to understand him you've got to know about Saturn.
For, you see, you're coasting when you come in, riding with idling jets, cutting in under the edge of the outside ring, into the darkness away from the sun. On the fourth day you go between the big ring and the crape, and then, when you look above you—you see one magnificent reason why men go to space.
There's Saturn.