Oh, young Lockenvarr has come out of the West. Through all the wide border, his steed was the best. And save his good broadsword, he weapons had none. He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone. So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, there never was night like the young Lockenvarr. He stayed not for break, and he stopped not for stone. He swam the Esk River where forward there was none. But ere he alighted at Netherby Gate, the bride had consented, the gallant came late. For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lockenvarr. So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall, among bridesmen and kinsmen, and brothers and all. Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword, for the poor craven bridegroom said never a word. Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lockenvarr! I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied. Love swells like the soul-way, but ebbs like its tide. And now I am come, with this lost love of mine, to lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine. There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far, that would gladly be bride to the young Lockenvarr. The bride kissed the goblet, the knight took it up. He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup. She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh, with a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye. He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar. Now tread we a measure, said young Lockenvarr. So stately his form, and so lovely her face, that never a hall such a gallard did grace. While her mother did fret, and her father did fume, and the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume, and the bride-maidens whispered to her better by far to have matched our fair cousin with young Lockenvarr. One touched to her hand, and one in her ear. When they reached the hall door, and the charger stood near, so light to the croop, the fair lady he swung. So light to the saddle before her he sprung. She is one, we are gone, over bank, bush, and scar. They'll have fleets-steeds that follow, quote young Lockenvarr. There was mounting, among grams, of the Netherby clan. Foresters, Fenwick's, and Musgraves, they rode, and they ran. There was racing, and chasing, on Canobie Lee. But the lost bride of Netherby, Nair, did they see. So daring in love, and so dauntless in war. Have you air heard of gallant, like young Lockenvarr? End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Recording by Linda Cantoning. Speak, speak, though fearful guest, Who, with thy hollow breasts, still in rude arm Addressed, comest to daunt me, Wrapped not in eastern bombs, but with thy fleshless palms, Stretched, as if asking arms, Why dost thou haunt me? Then, from those cavernous eyes, Pale flashes seem to rise, As when the northern skies glean in December, And, like the water's flow, Under December's snow, came a dull voice of woe From the heart's chamber. I was a viking old, My deeds though manifold, No scowled in song has told, No saga taught thee, Take heed that in thy verse, Thou dost the tale rehearse, Else dread a dead man's curse, For this I sought thee.  And, with my skates fast bound, Skim the half-frozen sound, That a poor whimpering hound Trembled to walk on, Offed to his frozen lair, Tracked I the grizzly bear, While from my path the hair Fled like a shadow, Offed to the forest dark, Followed the were-wolf's bark, Until the soaring lark Sang from the meadow. But when I older grew, Joining a corsair's crew, O'er the dark sea I flew With them are orders. Wild was the life we led, Many the souls that sped, Many the hearts that bled By our stern orders. Many a wassail bout wore the long winter out, Often our midnight shout Set the cocks crowing. As weed the berserkers' tail, Measuring cups of ale, Drained the oak and pale, Filled to overflowing. Once, as I told in glee, Tales of the stormy sea, Soft eyes did gaze on me, Burning yet tender. And as the white stars shine On the dark Norway pine, On that dark heart of mine Fell their soft splendour. I wooed the blue I'd made, Yielding yet half-afraid, And in the forest shade Our vows were plighted. Under its loosened vest Flooded her little breast, Like birds within their nest By the hawk frightened. Bright in her father's hall, Shields gleamed upon the wall, Loud sang the minstrel's all, Chanting his glory. When of old hill the brand, I asked his daughter's hand, Mute did the minstrel stand To hear my story. While the brown ale he quaffed, Loud then the champion laughed. And as the wind gust waft The sea-phone brightly, So the loud laugh of scorn From those lips unshawn, From the deep drinking horn Blew the phone lightly. She was a prince's child, And I, but a viking wild, Through she blushed and smiled I was discarded. Should not the dove so white Follow the sea mules flight, Why did they leave that night Her nest unguarded? Scarce had I put to sea, Bearing the maid with me, Fairest of all was she Among the Norsemen. When, on the white sea-strand, Waving his armed hand, We saw hill the brand With twenty horsemen. They launched then to the blast, Bent like a reed each mast, Yet we were gaining fast When the wind failed us. And with a sudden flaw Came round the gusty score, So that our foe we saw Laughed as he hailed us. And, as to catch the gale, Round veered the flapping sail, Death was the helmsman hail, Death without quarter, Midships with the iron keel, Struck were her ribs of steel, Down her black hull Did reel through the black water. As with his wings a slant, Sails the fierce cormorant, Seeking some rocky haunt With his prey laden, Sewed towards open main, Beating to sea again, Through the wild hurricane, Bore I the maiden. Three weeks we westward bore, And when the storm was o'er, Cloud-like we saw the shore Stretching to leeward. There, for my lady's bower, Built I the lofty tower, To which this very hour Stands looking seaward.  Death closed her mild blue eyes, Under that tower she lies, Near shall the sun arise On such another. Still grew my bosom then, Still as a stagnant fen, Hateful to me were men, The sunlight hateful. In the vast forest here, Clad in my war-like gear, Fell I upon my spear. Oh, death was grateful! Thus seemed with many scars, Bursting these prison-bars, Up to its native stars my soul ascended. There, from the flowing ball, Deep drinks the warrior's soul, Skull to the Northland, Skull. Thus the tale ended. End of Poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith From the Junior Classics Volume 10, Part II Poems Old and New, Read for LibriVox. Recording by Larry Wilson. Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain, Where health and plenty cheered the levering swaying, Where smiling spring gets earliest visit paid, And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed. Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, Seats of my youth, when every sport could please, How often I have loitered o'er thy green, Where humble happiness endeared each scene, How often have I paused on every charm, The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm, The never-failing brook, the busy mill, The decent church that topped the neighboring hill, The hawthorn bush that seats beneath the shade, For talking age and whispering lovers made, How often when I have blessed the coming day, When toil-remitting lit its turn to play, And all the village strained from labour free, Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree, While many a pastime circled in the shade, The young contending as the old surveyed, And many a gamble frolic'd o'er the ground, And slights of art and feats of strength went round, And still as each repeated pleasure tried, Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired, The dancing pair that simply sought to renown, By holding out to tire each other down, The swaying mistrustless of his smutted face, While secret laughter titted round the place, The bashful virgin side-long looks of love, The matron's glance that would those looks reprove. These were thy charm's sweet village, Sports like these with sweet succession, Taught in toil to please. These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed, These were thy charms, but all these charms are fled.  No more thy glassy brook reflects the day, But choked with sedges works its weedy way, Along thy glades a solitary guest, The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest.  Ill fares the land to hastening ills of prey, Where wealth accumulates in men decay, Princes and lords may flourish or may fade, A breath can make them as a breath has made, But a bold peasantry their country's pride, When once destroyed, can never be supplied. A time there was ere England's griefs began, When every root of ground maintained its man, For him light labour spread her wholesome store, Just gave what life required, but gave no more. His best companions innocence and help, And his best riches ignorance of wealth. But times are altered. Trades unfeeling train usurp the land, And dispossess the swain. Along the lawn where scattered hamlets rose, Unwieldy wealth and cumbers-pump repose, And every want to opulence allied, And every pang that folly pays to pride. These gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom, Those calm desires that ask but little room, Those healthful sports that grace the peaceful scene, Lived in each looth and brightened all the green, These far departing seek a kinder shore, And rural mirth and manners are no more. Sweet Auburn, parent of the blissful hour, Thy glades for lawn confess the tyrant's power. Here as I take my solitary rounds Amidst thy tangling walks And ruined grounds, And many a year elapsed return to view, Where once the cottage stood, The Hawthorne grew. Remember its wakes with all her busy train, Swells at my breast and turns the past to pain. In all my wanderings round this world of care, In all my griefs, and God has given my share, I still had hopes, my latest hours, To crown amidst these humble bowers to lay me down. To husband out life's taper at the close, And keep the flame from wasting by repose. I still had hopes, for pride attends a still, Amidst the swaying's to show my book-learn skill, Around my fire and evening group to draw, And tell of all I felt and all I saw. And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, Panced to the place from whence at first she flew, I still had hopes, my long vexations past, Here to return, and die at home at last. O blessed retirement friend of life's decline, Retreats from care that never must be mine, How happy he who crowns in shades like these, A youth of labour with an age of ease, Who quits a world where strong temptations try, And sits to his heart to combat, learns to fly. For him no wretches, born to work and weep, Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep. No surly porter stands in guilty state, To spurn employing famine from the gate. But on the moves to meet his latter end, Angels around befriending virtue's friend, Bins to the grave with unperceived decay, While resignation gently slopes the way, And all his prospects brightening to the last, His heaven commences ere the world be past. Sweet was the sound when off to the evening's close, Up yonder hill the village murmur rose. There as I passed with careless steps and slow, The mingling notes came softened from below. The swaying responsive as the milkmaid sung, The sober herd that load to meet their young. The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, The playful children just let loose from school. The watched dog's voice that bade the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind. These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And filled each pause the nightingale had made. But now the sounds of population fail, No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale, No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread, But all the bloomy flush of life is fled. All but you widowed solitary thing, That feebly bins beside the plashy spring, She wretched matron forced in age for bread To strip the brook with mantling creses spread, To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn, To seek her nightly shed and weep till morn. She only left of all the harmless train, The sad historian of the pensive plain. Near yonder copse where once the garden smiled, And still where many a garden flower grows wild, There where a few torn shrubs the place disclosed, The village preacher's modest mansion rose. A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a year. Remote from towns he ran his godly race, Nor ere had changed nor wished to change his place. Unpracticed he to fawn or seek for power, By doctrine's fashion to the very hour. Far other aims his heart had learned to prize, More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise. His house was known to all the vagrant train, His chid, their wanderings, but relieved their pain. The long-remembered beggar was his guest, Whose beard descending swept his aged breast. The ruined spin-threp now no longer proud, Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed. The broken soldier kindly bade to stay, Sat by his fire and talked the night away. Wept o'er his wounds or tales of sorrow done, Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won. Passed with his guests the good man learned to glow, And quite forgot their vices in their woe. Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave air charity began. Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, And in his failings leaned to virtue's side. But in his duty prompted every call, He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all. And as a bird each found in tearment tries to tempt, Its new-fledged offspring to the skies. He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, Allured to brighter worlds and led the way. Beside the bed where parting life was laid, And sorrow gilded in pain by turns dismayed, The reverend champion stood. At his control despair and anguish fled the struggling soul. Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, And his last faltering accents whispered praise. At church with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorned the venerable place. Truth from his lips bevelled with double sway, And fools who came to scoff remained to pray. The service pass round the pious man, With steady zeal each honest rustic man. In children followed with endearing wile, And plucked his gown to share the good man's smile. His ready smile, appearance warmth expressed, Their welfare pleased him and their cares distressed. To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven, As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form Swells from the veil the midway leaves the storm. The round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head.  A man severe he was and stern to view. I knew him well, and every truant knew. Well had the boating tremblers learned to trace The day's disasters in his morning face. Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee At all his jokes, for many a joke had he. Full well the busy whisper circling round Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned. Yet he was kind, or of severe an ought, The love he bore to learning was in fault. The village all declared how much he knew. To a certain he could write in cipher too. Lands he could measure, terms and tides, Presage, and in the story ran that he could gauge. In arguing too the parson owned his skill, For even though the vanquished he could argue still, While words of learned and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around. And still they gazed and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew. But past is all his fame. The very spot where many a time he triumphed is forgot. Near yonder thorn that lifts its head on high, Where once the signpost caught the passing eye, Low lies that house where nut-brown drafts inspired, Where gray-beard mirth and smiling toil retired, Where village statesmen talked with looks profound, And news much older than their ale went round. Imagination fondly stooped to trace The parlor splendors of that festive place. The white-washed wall. The nicely-standard floor. The varnish clock that clicked behind the door. The chess contrived a double debt to pay, A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day. The pictures placed for ornament and use. The twelve good rules. The royal game of goose.  While broken teacups wisely kept for show, Ranged o'er the chimney, listened in a row. Vane transitory splendors Could not all reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall. Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart An hours' importance to the poor man's heart. Thither no more the peasants shall repair The sweet oblivion of his daily care. No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale. No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail. No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear. Relax his ponderous strength and lean to hear. The host himself no longer shall be found. Careful to see the mantling bliss go round. Nor the coy maid half willing to be pressed Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest. Yes, let the rich deride, The proud disdain, these simple blessings Of the lowly train. To me, more dear, congenial to my heart, One native charm than all the gloss of art. Spontaneous joys, where nature had its play, The soul adopts and owns their firstborn sway. Lightly they far like o'er the vacant mind, An envied, unbelested, unconfined. But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade, With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed, In these air triflers half their wish obtain, The tolling pleasure sicken's into pain, And in, while fashion's brightest arts decoy, A heart distrusting asks if this be joy. Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen Who survey the rich man's joys increase, The poor's decay. It is yours to judge how wide the limits stand Between a splendid and a happy land. Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore, And shouting folly hails them from her shore. Hordes in beyond the miser's wish abound, And rich men flock from all the world around, Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name that leaves Our useful products still the same. Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride takes up a space That many poor supplied. Space for his sake, his park's extended bounds, Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds. The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth Has robbed the neighboring fields of half their gold. His seat where solitary sports are seen Indignant spurns the cottage from the green. Around the world each needful product flies, For all the luxuries the world supplies, While thus the land adorned for pleasure All in barren splendor feebly waits the fall. As some fair female, unadorned and plain, Secure to please while youth confirms her reign, Slights every borrowed charm that dress supplies, More shares with art the triumph of her eyes. But when those charms are passed, for charms are frail, When time advances and when lovers fail, She then shines forth solicitous to bless In all the glaring impotence of dress. Thus fares the land by luxury betrayed, In nature's simplest charms at first arrayed. But verging to decline its splendor's rise, Its vista strike its palace's surprise. While scourged by famine from the smiling land, The mournful peasant leads his humble band, And while he sinks without one arm to save, The country blooms a garden and a grave. Where then, where shall poverty reside To escape the pressure of contiguous pride? If to some common's finseless limit strayed, He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade.  If to the city's bed what waits him there, To see profusion that he must not share, To see ten thousand baneful arts combined To pamper luxury and thin mankind? To see these joys the sons of pleasure know Extorted from his fellow creature's woe. Here, while the courier glitters in brocade, There the pale artist plays his sickly trade. Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomp display, There the black jibbit glooms beside the way, The dome where pleasure holds her midnight reign. Here richly decked amidst the gorgeous train, To multuous grandeur crowds the blazing square, The rattling chariots clasp the torches glare. Sure, scenes like these no troubles ere annoy, Sure, these denote one universal joy. Are these thy serious thoughts? Ah, turn thine eyes where the poor, House-less, shivering female lies. She once perhaps in village plenty blessed, As wept at tales of innocence distressed. Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn. Now lost to all. Her friends, her virtue fled, Near her betrayer's door she lays her head, And pitched with cold and shrinking from the shower. With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour, When idly first, ambitious of the town, She left her wheel and robes of country brown. Do thine, sweet Auburn, thine the loveliest train, Do thy fair tribes participate her pain? He now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led, At proud men's doors they ask a little bread. Ah, no, to distant climbs a dreary scene, Where half the convex world intrudes between, Through torred tracks with fainting steps they go, Where, while ultima murmurs to their woe, Far different there from all that charmed before, The various terrors of that horrid shore, Those blazing suns that dart to a downward ray, And fiercely shed intolerable day, Those matted woods where birds forget to sing, But silent bats and drowsy clusters cling, Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriant's crown, Where the dark scorpion gathers death around, Where at each step the stranger fears to wake The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake. Where crotching tigers wait their hapless prey, And savage men a more murderous still than they, While often whirls the mad tornado flies, Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies, Far different there from every former scene, The cooling brook, the grassy vested green, The breezy covert of the warbling grove, That only sheltered thefts of harmless love. Good heaven, what sorrows gloomed that parting day That called them from their native walks away, When the poor exiles every pleasure passed, Hung round their bowers and fondly looked their last, And took along farewell and wished in vain, For seats like these beyond the western main, And shuddering still to face the distant deep, Returned and wept and still returned to weep. The good old sire, the first prepared to go, To newfound whirls and wept for others' wool, But for himself in conscious virtue brave, He only wished for whirls beyond the grave, His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears, The fond companion of his helpless years. Silent went next, neglectful of her charms, And left a lovers for her father's arms, With louder planks the mother spoke her woes, And blessed the cot where every pleasure rose, And kissed her thoughtless bays with many a tear, And clasped them close in sorrow doubly dear. Whilst her fond husband strode to lend relief In all the silent manliness of grief, O luxury, thou cursed by heaven's decree, How ill-exchanged are things like these for thee. How do thy potions within city's joy Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy? Kingdoms by thee to sickly greatness grown, Most of a floored vigor not their own, At every draught more large and large they grow, A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe, Till sapped their strength in every part and sound, Down down they sink and spread a ruin round. In now the devastation is begun, And hath the business of destruction done. In now me thinks, as pondering here I stand, I see the rural virtues leave the land. Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail, That idly waiting flaps with every gale, Downward they move a melancholy band, Pass from shore and darken all the strand, Contented toil the hospitable care, And kind cannubial tenderness are there, And piety with wishes placed above, And steady loyalty and faithful love. And thou, sweet poetry, thou loveliest made, Still first to fly where sensual joys invade, And fit in these degenerate times of shame To catch the heart or strike for honest fame. Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried, My shame and crowds, my solitary pride, Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe, That foundest me poor at first, and keeps to me so. Thou guide by which the noble arts excel, Thou nurse of every virtue fairly well. Farewell, and oh where thy voice be tried, On Tornot's cliffs or Pamba Marcus's side, Whether where equinoxial fervors glow, Or winter wraps the polar world in snow. Still, let thy voice, prevailing over time, Redress the rigors of the inclement climb. Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive train, Teach earring man to spurn the rage of gain, Teach him that states of native strength possessed, Though very poor, may still be very blessed, That trade's proud empire haste to swift decay, As ocean sweeps the labored mole away, While self-dependent power can time defy, As rocks resist the billows and the sky. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. to bear him company.  The skipper he stood beside the helm, His pipe was in his mouth, And he watched how the veering floor did blow, The smoke now west, now south. Then up spake, and all sailor, Had sailed the Spanish main, I pray thee put into yonder port, For I fear a hurricane, Last night the moon had a golden ring, And to-night no moon we see. The skipper he blew away from his pipe, And a scornful laugh laughed he. Calder and calder blew the wind, A gale from the north-east, The snow fell hissing in the brine, And the billows frothed like yeast. Down came the storm and smote in main, The vessel in its strength, She shuddered and paused like a frightened steed, Then leaped her cable's length. Come hither, come hither, my little daughter, And do not tremble so, For I can weather the roughest gale That ever wind did blow. He wrapped her warm in his seamen's coat, Against the stinging blast, He cut a rope from a broken spar, And bound her to the mast. O Father, I hear the church bell's ring, O say what may it be! Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast, And he steered for open sea. O Father, I hear the sound of guns, O say what may it be! Some ship in distress that cannot live In such an angry sea. O Father, I see a gleaming light, O say what may it be! But the Father answered never a word, A frozen corpse was he. Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark, With his face turned to the skies, The lantern gleamed through gleaming snow, On his fixed and glassy eyes. Then the maiden clapped her hands and prayed, That save that she might be, And she thought of Christ, Who stilled the waves on the lake of Galilee, And fast through the midnight darken drear, Through the whistling sleet and snow, Like a sheeted ghost the vessel swept, Towards the reef of Norman's woe. And ever the fitful gusts between, A sound came from the land, It was the sound of the trampling surf, On the rocks and the hard sea sand. The breakers were right beneath her bows, She drifted a dreary wreck, And a whooping billow swept the crew, Like icicles from her deck. She struck where the white and fleecy waves Look soft as carded wool, But the cruel rocks that gawd her side, Like the horns of an angry bull. Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice, With the masts went by the board, Like a vessel of glass she stove and sank, Ho-ho! the breakers roared. At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, A fisherman stood aghast, To see the form of a maiden fair, Lashed close to a drifting mast. The sea-salt was frozen on her breast, The salt-tears in her eyes, And he saw her hair, Like the brown sea-weed, On the billows fall and rise. Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, In the midnight and the snow. Christ save us all from a death like this. On the reef of Norman's woe. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge From the Junior Classics, Volume 10, Part 2 Poems Old and New Read for LibriVox.org by Phil Shempf Part 1 It is an ancient mariner, And he stopeth one of three, By their long gray beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stop us, thou me? The bridegroom's doors are open wide, And I am the next of kin. The guests are met, the feast is set, Mayest hear the merry din. He holds him with his skinny hand. There was a ship, quote he, Hold off, unhand me, gray beard loon! F. soon's his hand dropped he. He holds him with his glittering eye. The wedding guest stood still, And listens like a three-year's child, The mariner hath his will. The wedding guest sat on a stone, He cannot choose but hear, And thus spake on that ancient man, The bright-eyed mariner. The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared, Merrily did we drop, Below the Kirk, below the hill, Below the lighthouse top. The sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea came he, And he shone bright and on the right, Went down into the sea, Higher and higher every day, Till over the mast at noon, The wedding guest here beat his breast, For he heard the loud bassoon. The bride hath paced into the hall, Red as a rose is she, Notting their heads before her goes The merry minstrel sea. The wedding guest, he beat his breast, Yet he cannot choose but hear, And thus spake on that ancient man, The bright-eyed mariner. And now the storm blast came, And he was tyrannous and strong.  The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, And southward high we fled. And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold. And ice, mast high, came floating by, As green as emerald. And through the drifts the snowy cliffs, Did send a dismal sheen, Nor shapes of men nor beasts we can, The ice was all between. The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around. It cracked and growled and roared and howled, Like noises in a swoon. At length did cross an albatross, Thoreau the fog it came. As if it had been a Christian soul, We hailed it in God's name. It ate the food it ne'er had eat, And round and round it flew. The ice did split with a thunder fit, And the helmsmen steered us through, And a good south wind sprung up behind, And the albatross did follow, And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariners, allo. In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine. While all the night through fog smoke white, Glimmered the white moonshine. Good save the ancient mariner, From the fiends that plague thee thus, Why looks thou so? With my crossbow I shot the albatross. Part 2 The sun now rose upon the right, Out of the sea came he, Still hid amist, and on the left, Went down into the sea, And the good south wind still blew behind, But no sweet bird did follow, Nor any day, for food or play, Came to the mariners, allo. And I had done a hellish thing, And it would work amwo. For all avaird I had killed the bird, That made the breeze to blow. Ah, wretched said they, The bird to slay, that made the breeze to blow. Nor dim nor red, like God's own head, The glorious sun-up-wrist. Then all avaird I had killed the bird, That brought the fog in mist. To us right said they, Such birds to slay, that bring the fog in mist. The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free. We were the first that ever burst into that silent sea. Down dropped the breeze, the sail dropped down, Was sad as sad could be. And we did speak, only to break the silence of the sea. All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody sun at noon, Right up above the mass did stand, No bigger than the moon. Day after day, Day after day we struck, Nor breath nor motion, As idle as a painted ship, Upon a painted ocean. Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink. Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink. The very deep did rot, oh Christ, That ever this should be. Yet slimy things did crawl With legs upon the slimy sea. About, about in reel and rout, The deathfires danced at night. The water like a witch's oils Burnt green and blue and white. And some in dreams a suread were Of the spirit that plagued us so. Nine fathom deep he had followed us From the land of mist and snow. And every tongue, though uttered route, Was withered at the root. We could not speak, No more than if we had been choked with soot. Ah, well a day, What evil looks had I from old and young. Instead of the cross, The albatross about my neck was hung. Part three. There passed a weary time. Each throat was parched and glazed each eye. A weary time. A weary time. How glazed each weary eye. When looking westward I beheld A something in the sky. At first it seemed a little speck. And then it seemed a mist. It moved and moved and took at last A certain shape I whisked. A speck, a mist, a shape I whisked. And still it neared and neared. And if it dodged a water sprite It plunged and tacked and veered. With throats unslaked, with black lips baked We could nor laugh nor wail.  I bit my arm and sucked the blood. And cried, A sail, a sail!  Gramercy they forjoy did grin. And all at once their breath drew in As they were drinking all. See? See? I cried. She tacks no more. Hither to work us wheel. Without a breeze, without a tide She steadies with upright keel. The western wave was all aflame. The day was well night done. Almost upon the western wave Rested the broad bright sun. When that strange shape drove Suddenly betwixt us and the sun. And straight the sun was flecked with bars Heaven's mother send us grace. As if through a dungeon grate he peered With broad and burning face. Alas! thought I and my heart beat loud How fast she nears and nears. Are those her sails that glance in the sun Like restless gossipers? Are those her ribs through which the sun Did pier as through a grate? And is that woman all her crew? Is that a death? And are there two? Is death that woman's mate? Her lips were red. Her looks were free. Her locks were yellow as gold. Her skin was white as leprosy. The nightmare life and death was she Who thicks man's blood with cold. The naked hulk alongside came. And the twain were casting dice. The game is done. I have won. I have won, quote she, And whistles thrice. The sun's rim dips. The stars rush out. At one stride comes the dark. With far heard whisper o'er the sea Off shot the specter bark. We listened and looked sideways up. Fear at my heart as at a cup My life blood seemed to sip. The stars were dim and thick the night The steersman's face by his lamp Gleamed white from the sails The dew did drip till clam above the eastern bar The horned moon with one bright star Within the nether tip.  Four times fifty living men And I heard nor sigh nor groan. With heavy thump a lifeless lump They dropped down one by one. The souls did from their bodies fly. They fled to blister woe. In every soul it passed me by Like the whiz of my crossbow. Part four I fear the ancient mariner. I fear thy skinny hand. And thou art long and lank and brown As is the ribbed sea sand. I fear thee and thy glittering eye And thy skinny hand so brown. Fear not, fear not, thou wedding guest This body dropped not down. Alone, alone, all, all alone Alone on a wide wide sea And never a saint took pity on my soul in agony The many men so beautiful And they all dead did lie And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on and so did I. I looked upon the rotting sea And drew my eyes away. I looked upon the rotting deck And there the dead men lay. I looked to heaven and tried to pray But or ever a prayer had gushed. A wicked whisper came And made my heart as dry as dust.   The cold sweat melted from their limbs Nor wrought nor reek did they. The look with which they looked on me Had never passed away.   Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse and yet I could not die. The moving moon went up the sky And nowhere did abide. Softly she was going up And a star or two beside. Her beams be mocked the sultry mane Like April whore frost spread. But where the ship's huge shadow lay The charm water burnt all way A still and awful red. Beyond the shadow of the ship I watched the water snakes. They moved in tracks of shining white And when they reared the elfish light Fell off in hoary flakes. Within the shadow of the ship I watched their rich attire. Blue, glossy green and velvet black They coiled and swam and every track Was a flash of golden fire. Oh, happy living things! No tongue their beauty might declare. A spring of love gushed from my heart And I blessed them unaware. Sure, my kind saint took pity on me And I blessed them unaware. The self-same moment I could pray And from my neck so free The albatross fell off And sank like lead into the sea. Part five Oh, sleep it is a gentle thing Beloved from pole to pole To merry queen the praise be given She sent the gentle sleep from heaven That slid into my soul. The silly buckets on the deck That had so long remained I dreamt that they were filled with dew And when I awoke it rained. My lips were wet, my throat was cold My garments all were dank. Sure I had drunken in my dreams And still my body drank. I moved and could not feel my limbs I was so light, almost I thought That I had died in sleep And was a blessed ghost. And soon I heard a roaring wind It did not come an ear, but with its sound It shook the sails that were so thin and sear. The upper air burst into life And a hundred fire-flags sheen To and fro they were hurried about And to and fro and in and out The wand-stars danced between And the coming wind did roar more loud And the sails did sigh like sedge And the rain poured down from one black cloud The moon was at its edge The thick black cloud was cleft And still the moon was at its side Like water shot from some high crag The lightning fell with never a jag A river steep and wide The loud wind never reached the ship Yet now the ship moved on Beneath the lightning and the moon The dead men gave a groan They groaned, they stirred They all uproised, nor spake, nor moved their eyes It had been strange Even in a dream to have seen those dead men rise The helmsman steered, the ship moved on Yet never a breeze up blue The mariners all gan work the ropes Where they were want to do They raised their limbs like lifeless tools We were a ghastly crew The body of my brother's son Stood by me, knee to knee The body and I pulled at one rope But he said not to me I fear the ancient mariner Be calm, thou wedding-guest It was not those souls that fled in pain Which to their courses came again But a troop of spirits blessed For when it dawned they dropped their arms And clustered around the mast Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths And from their bodies passed Around, around, flew each sweet sound Then darted to the sun Slowly the sounds came back again Now mixed, now one by one Sometimes a dropping from the sky I heard the skylark sing Sometimes all little birds that are How they seemed to fill the sea in air With their sweet jargoning And now, twas like all instruments Now like a lonely flute And now it is an angel's song That makes the heavens be mute It ceased, yet still the sails made on A pleasant noise till noon A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June That too the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune Till noon we quietly sailed on Yet never a breeze did breathe Slowly and smoothly went the ship Moved onward from beneath Under the keel, nine fathomed deep From the land of mist and snow The spirit slid And it was he that made the ship to go The sails at noon left off their tune And the ship stood still also The sun right up above the mast Had fixed her to the ocean But in a minute she ganced her With a short uneasy motion Backwards and forwards half her length With a short uneasy motion Then like a pawing horse let go She made a sudden bound It flung the blood into my hand And I fell down in a swooned How long in that same fit I lay I have not to declare But ere my living life returned I heard and in my soul discerned Two voices in the air Is it he, quote one, Is this the man by him who died on cross With his cruel bow he laid full low The harmless albatross The spirit who bighteth by himself In the land of mist and snow He loved the bird that loved the man Who shot him with his bow The other was a softer voice As soft as honey do Quothee, the man hath penance done And penance more will do Part six First voice But tell me, tell me, speak again That soft response renewing What makes that ship drive on so fast What is the ocean doing? Second voice Still as a slave before his lord The ocean hath no blast His great bright eye most silently Up to the moon is cast If he may know which way to go For she guides him smooth or grim See, brother, see how graciously She looketh down on him First voice But why drives on that ship so fast Without or wave or wind? Second voice The air is cut away before And closes from behind Fly, brother, fly More high, more high Or we shall be belated For slow and slow that ship will go When the mariners trance is abated I woke and we were sailing on As in a gentle weather Twas night, calm night The moon was high The dead men stood together All stood together on the deck For a charneled dungeon fitter All fixed on me their stony eyes That in the moon did glitter The pang, the curse With which they died Had never passed away I could not draw my eyes from theirs Nor turn them up to pray And now this spell was snapped Once more I viewed the ocean green And looked far forth Yet little saw of what had else been seen Like one that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread And having once turned round walks on And turns no more his head Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread But soon their breathe the wind on me Nor sound nor motion made Its path was not upon the sea In ripple orange shade It raised my hair It fanned my cheek Like a meadowgale of spring It mingled strangely with my fears Yet it felt like a welcoming Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship Yet she sailed softly too Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze On me alone it blew Oh, dream of joy Is this indeed the lighthouse top I see? Is this the hill? Is this the Kirk? Is this my own country? We drifted o'er the harbour bar And I with sobs did pray Oh, let me awake, my God Or let me sleep all way The harbour bay was clear as glass So smoothly it was thrown And on the bay the moonlight lay And the shadow of the moon The rock shone bright The Kirk no less That stands above the rock The moonlight steeped in silentness The steady weathercock And the bay was white with silent light Till rising from the same Full many shapes that shadows were In crimson colours came The little distance from the prow Those crimson shadows were I turned my eyes upon the deck O Christ, what saw I there? Each course lay flat Lifeless and flat And by the holy rude A man all light A seraph man On every course there stood This seraph band Each waved his hand It was a heavenly sight They stood as signals to the land Each one a lovely light This seraph band Each waved his hand No voice did they impart No voice, but oh The silence sank like music on my heart But soon I heard the dash of oars I heard the pilot's cheer My head was turned per force away And I saw a boat appear The pilot and the pilot's boy I heard them coming fast Dear Lord in heaven It was a joy the dead men could not blast I saw a third, I heard his voice It is the hermit good He singeth loud his godly hymns That he makes in the wood He'll shrive my soul He'll wash away the albatross' blood Part seven This hermit good lives in that wood Which slopes down to the sea How lovely his sweet voice he rears He loves to talk with mariners That come from a far country He kneels at morn and noon and eve He hath a cushion plump It is the moss that holy hides The rotted old oak stump The skiff boat neared I heard them talk Why, this is strange, I troll Where are those lights so many and fair That signal made but now Strange by my faith, the hermit said And they answered not our cheer The planks look warp And see those sails How thin they are and sear I never saw ought like to them Unless perchance it were Brown skeletons of leaves that lag My forest brook along When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow And the aldot whoops to the wolf below That eats the she-wolf's young Dear lord, it hath a fiendish look The pilot made reply I am afeard, push on Push on, said the hermit cheerily The boat came closer to the ship But I nor spake nor stirred The boat came close beneath the ship And straight a sound was heard Under the water it rumbled on Still louder and more dread It reached the ship, it split the bay The ship went down like lead Stung by that loud and dreadful sound Which sky and ocean smote Like one that hath been seven days drowned My body lay afloat But swift as dreams myself I found Within the pilot's boat Upon the whirl where sank the ship The boat spun round and round And all was still, save that the hill Was telling of the sound I moved my lips, the pilot shrieked And fell down in a fit The holy hermit raised his eyes And prayed where he did sit I took the oars, the pilot's boy Who now doth crazy go Laughed loud and long in all the while His eyes went to and fro Quoth he, full plain I see The devil knows how to row And now, all in my own country I stood on the firm land The hermit stepped forth from the boat And scarcely he could stand Oh, shrive me, shrive me, holy man The hermit crossed his bow Say quick, quoth he, I bid thee say What manner of man art thou Forthwith this frame of mine Was wrenched with a woeful agony Which forced me to begin my tale And then it left me free Since then, at an uncertain hour That agony returns Until my ghastly tale is told This heart within me burns I pass, like night, from land to land I have strange power of speech That moment that his face I see I know the man that must hear me To him my tale I teach Would loud uproar burst from that door The wedding guests are there But in the garden bower the bride And bride's maids singing are And hark the little Vesper bell Which bideth me to prayer O wedding guest, this soul hath been Alone on a wide, wide sea So lonely twas that God himself Scarce seemed there to be O sweeter than the marriage feast Tis sweeter far to me To walk together to the Kirk With a goodly company To walk together to the Kirk And all together pray While each to his great father bends Old men and babes and loving friends And youths and maidens gay Farewell, farewell, but this I tell To thee, thou wedding guest He prayeth well, who loveth well Both man and bird and beast He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small For the dear God who loveth us He made and loveth all The mariner whose eye is bright Whose beard with age is whore Is gone, and now the wedding guest Turned from the bridegroom's door He went like one that hath been Stunned and is of sense forlorn A sadder and a wiser man He rose the moral morn End of poem This recording is in the public domain The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe From the Junior Classics Vol. 10, Part 2 Poems Old and New Red for LibriVox Recording by John Rushton Hear the sledges with The Bells Silver Bells What a world of merriment their melody foretells How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle In the icy air of night While the stars that oversprinkle All the heavens seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight Keeping time, time, time In a sort of runic rhyme To the tinted ablation That so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells Bells, bells, bells From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells Hear the mellow wedding bells Golden bells What a world of happiness their harmony foretells Through the barmy air of night How they ring out their delight From the molten golden notes And all in tune What a liquid-ditty float To the turtledove that listens While she gloats on the moon O, from out the sounding cells What a gush of euphonesy volumously swells How it swells, how it dwells On the future how it tells Of the ratchet that impells To the swinging and the ringing Of the bells, bells, bells Of the bells, bells, bells, bells Bells, bells, bells, bells To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells Hear the loud alarm bells Raisin' bells What a tale of terror now Their turbulence he tells In the startling ear of night How they scream out their affright Too much horrified to speak They can only shriek, shriek Out of tune In the clamorous appealing To the mercy of the fire In a mad expostulation To the deaf and frantic fire Leaping higher Higher, higher With a desperate desire And a resolute endeavor now Now to sit or never By the side of the pale-faced moon O, the bells, bells, bells What a tale of terror tells Of despair, how they clang And clash and roar What a horror they outpour On the bosom of the palpitating air Yet the ear it fully knows By the twanging and the clanging How the danger ebbs and flows Yet the ear distinctly tells In the jangling and the wrangling How the danger sinks and swells By the sinking or the swelling In the anger of the bells Of the bells Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells In the clamour and the clangour Of the bells Hear the tolling of the bells Iron bells What a world of son and thought Their melody compels In the silence of the night How we shiver with affright At the melancholy menace of their tone For every sound that floats From the rust within their throats Is a groan And the people, ah, the people That they dwell up in the steeple all alone And who tolling, tolling, tolling In that muffled monotone Feel a glory in so rolling On the human heart of stone They are neither man nor woman They are neither brute nor human They are ghouls And their king it is that tolls And he rolls, rolls, rolls Rolls a peon from the bells And his merry bosom swells With the peon of the bells And he dances and he yells Keeping time, time, time In a sort of runic rhyme To the peon of the bells Of the bells Keeping time, time, time In a sort of runic rhyme To the throbbing of the bells Of the bells, bells, bells To the sobbing of the bells keeping time, time, time, as he knells, knells, knells, in a happy runic rhyme, to the rolling of the bells, of the bells, bells, bells, to the tolling of the bells, of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, to the moaning and the groaning of the bells. End of Poem This recording is in the public domain. End of the Junior Classics Volume 10, Part 2, Poem's Old and New, Compiled by William Patton


Hey, what's going on guys Jordan from Monday Muscle back at you with another video Sorry, I haven't posted in a while life sort of happened. I got busy. I'm back at it though We're going to a meet today in Orange City, Florida before we get into the video. I just want to say How grateful and thankful I am for all my subscribers and everybody that watches my videos I truly appreciate that we're over 20,000 views channel-wide, which is great You know, just keep watching the videos keep sharing them You know watching the video all the way through is what helps me as well all the people that supported me You know buying my merch my t-shirt that greatly helps me everything just goes back into the channel I'm just trying to grow through this channel, and I'm glad you guys are you know support her to me Well, I'm doing it One hour later Going on man back. Yeah Affiliate me y'all. What's up? Going on brand orange. We're in Orange City Just got here I need to find the the person in charge so I can let them know I'm here What y'all doing out there? My name is Jeff Belan president of Lush County mo cars We're out here pet going on city today doing a car show. We got dock dogs out here doing all kinds of tricks out here They're supporting pet cancer. We're just trying to get everything going and have a good time out here We got a lot of community support We're just having a good time showing off the car. There's our info right there guys But I'll make sure I'll put it in the description and on the screen. All right guys I was able to Have a friend of mine's watch my shirts while I walk around and show you guys some of these good cars out here So, you know So far the meat. Yes, I have my hand come covering the Sun. I can't see Which one cause so yeah, so far the meets going really good hopefully you guys can hear me because uh The music's really loud, but um, yeah, so far the meets good man. There's all types of different cars out here Old school new school. It's great man stayed in Florida, but I do want to travel out the state I do want to start doing that. I just got a couple things tied up in life right now But yeah, I do want to do that outside. Yeah, man I would I would say if I do YouTube man, just do it man I wouldn't I was shy my first video and then I just kept doing it and now I'm not shy no more, so Modern-day underscore muscle Just met Anthony says he's has a YouTube channel go ahead and shout out to you My channel is Tony Tony at the drive Okay, I'll make sure I put that on the screen as well. Yes. I do got by now just just pictures in them in a in a in a young slide show But eventually I'm gonna try to get camera so I could do my Because I know I know I Learn how to count And with them I say what policy only give a different perspective with that said I wouldn't give a different Yeah Hey guys follow my guy Anthony on his YouTube channel, I'm gonna put it on the screen so you that you guys can see Yeah I Like that it's white it looks like it can't yeah, it looks like That's nice. That's definitely nice and I was gonna put like some foam on here or something so I covered him Oh, I see why doesn't fit because yeah, this is in the way. Yeah, I see I see that's definitely in the way It still looks right if you stick it in there and it's off-center a little bit Yeah, looks right, but of course it's not attached to anything You want to shout your name in your Instagram out for the YouTube Rick Mamo Good no no Instagram. No nothing like that Just on Facebook. That's on Facebook. All right, cool This is Rick's car y'all Beautiful white shaker guys. It's later in the day. Um, it was so hot that my camera overheated So I missed out on some footage, but shout out to Volusia County Mopars and Jeff You guys were great. Um, thanks for the love and support I met a whole bunch of people and it was just chill vibes. Like that's what the car community is supposed to be You know just chill vibes. We can cool people and connecting and collaborating, you know Oh, yeah, shout out to FLA. Have me man. My guy. I seen him out there. It was cool seeing him again, man We got a um, we got a link up soon, man But uh, yeah shout out to everybody that you know come said hey or you know Just wanted to have a conversation or bought a shirt or you know subscribe that day or anything, man um All that stuff means a lot to me and you know if you guys just continue to watch You know continue to share even commenting and stuff like that all that stuff gets the videos out there on YouTube So um, I can get more views and stuff like that all of that helps me with that being said my name is Jordan This is modern day muscle and I'll catch you in the next video


There you go Leo. Come on Jordan Ten seconds. Let's get it Jordan. Let's go Leo. There you go Jordan. Push push. Come on Jordan. Let's go Jordan Come on guys. Come on. Open your eyes, Leo. Open your eyes. You do better if you have your eyes open. Leo back up Back up Leo. Come on. Come on Jordan. Come on Jordan. Come on guys. Come on. Come on Come on. Come on Jordan. 30 seconds Jordan. Keep up the pace. Keep it up. Twist up. Go outside. Go outside Rafi. Go behind him. Come on Jordan. Let's go Leo. Come on guys. Come on. 30 seconds. Come on. It's an It's an Ijo meal. It's an Ijo meal. Yeah, bunch of people right now. No is that done? Is that done? I'm just texting a lot of people to find out where the


Well thank you Peter, thank you for that warm introduction. I jetted back last night from Lisbon for this from the Global Innovation Summit where I can tell you the world is really excited about this sector and I was amazed by how many space companies that are all round the world keen to work with the UK and to follow our lead in this field so it's a huge pleasure to be here. Thank You Peter and thank you to the Secure World Foundation for all of your work and to the space agency who I'm lucky enough to be minister- responsible for for all the work you've done. I was following yesterday's events from Lisbon online and it was a fantastic day packed with brilliant sessions. Look I'm here today to make what I hope will be a very important announcement. Ministers often make little announcements. This is not a little one. I hope that what we unveiled today will come to be seen as a moment in UK space policy. I'd like to think in years to come people will say, well that was the space sustainability declaration. It was made at the Science Museum and it triggered a change in regulatory policy in the UK and accelerated UK and global leadership in the regulations for space sustainability. Boy is it overdue and if the UK has a role in the world which I believe we do, it is to be a science and technology superpower, it is to help set the regulatory framework, it is to galvanise global leadership, it's to lean in to global challenges and I can't think of a better sector than this to provide that galvanising global leadership. So I'll come to the announcements in a minute but I wanted first of all just to set the scene.  Here in this building you will have had a chance in the last 24 hours to have a look and not only have we got Tim Peaks command module, not only have we got the Soyuz spacecraft, we've got Moonrock, we've got the Apollo 10 command module with that incredible reminder of how basic and low-tech the original Apollo missions were. We're basically slingshotting people into space in a kettle and it's just really inspiring I think to see the extraordinary endeavour, the spirit of global ambition of that to me a golden age of 1960s science technology for global good and the spirit of Kennedy. But when you look at those Apollo modules and you look at the technology there's more computing power, many times more computing power in our phones today than there was in the Apollo mission. These were very low-tech operations and I think history will come to judge those Apollo astronauts as the 16th century Portuguese explorers who I was celebrating yesterday in Lisbon. They set off thinking the world was flat and wondering when they would reach the edge. Some giant waterfall and they discovered the world wasn't flat. It's round and so drove that incredible age of exploration and discovery. And you were kind enough Peter to say that I was a venture capitalist. Don't worry, I'm not going to sign you up to some aggressive term sheet this morning. I'm not a proper scientist. I read history and philosophy of science at Cambridge 30 years ago when the climate science was beginning to be clear. And I bring to this job, yes, a passion for the spirit of science, Cientia. I deeply believe that the scientific method, the progress, the process of science, free speech, critical thinking, sharing data, working with people collaboratively is the spirit that the world needs urgently for sustainable development and growth. It's good for civics. It's good for society. But it's also completely fundamental to tackling the global challenges that we face. But I do bring a very commercial background and if we are to be a global science superpower which I think we can be, the real key is how do we connect the city, the finance, the mainstream business reality of this country to our science base. And I would argue that for five or six decades we've really been a science powerhouse in silos with all too little serious innovation, amazing pieces of innovation that too often end up in America and Nasdaq and leaving the country. If we could connect our city of London financing ecosystem to our science and technology base then we really would be a global science superpower and that's what today is really about. But let me just first of all set a little bit of context. First of all we gather at a time of increasingly urgent global challenges. People talk about challenges a lot. It's an easy phrase. It's the urgency I want to just remind us all of. Last year we hosted COP26. The planet is heating up at an unsustainably fast level with very, very serious implications for all of us. And we have to keep global climate rise within 1.5 certainly within 2 degrees fast. This isn't a 100 year challenge. This is a now challenge. This is the next 5, 10, 15 years. And the urgency of that challenge linked to the urgency of doubling food production in the next 20 years doubling global food production on the same land area with half as much water and energy. The challenge of harnessing our oceans and first of all cleaning them up and then harnessing the incredible power of marine technology of blue biotech. That blue on those atlases that we look at, the empty blue area is absolutely key to our sustainability as a planet and to our economic sustainability. Tackling the hotspots that drive migration. We simply cannot allow the people of sub-Saharan Africa to have to leave to walk out of Africa to find prosperity. We have got to lean in and help support sustainable development. We've got to learn the lesson of this pandemic. It's not the first. We've had Zika, Ebola, Zars. They're going to keep coming. And they're going to keep coming in plant health, animal health and human health. And the pandemic is a wake up call that we have got to get our global systems better organised. And the UK has a huge role to play. We can be very proud that we sequenced the COVID vaccine. Amazing, built on a lot of the work we did back in the coalition on genomics. But the real challenge is to make sure we're quicker next time to sequence the next pathogen and to get the genomic sequence to do global clinical trials and to roll the vaccines out. And now on top of all that we have war. War in Europe. I mean, not two hours flight from here. People like us bombed out of their houses by a brutal and savage regime on the continent of Europe. This is urgent, folks. I mean, this is a real crisis. And I hate to depress you, but I'm positive because I think the urgency of this should inspire us all to get to work. And I think like you, we believe that these challenges are solvable. I deeply believe that in the next 20, 30 years we'll be able to bounce our grandchildren on our knees and say you had to be there after an appalling decade here in the UK, a third crash, austerity, a Brexit vote, a civil war, a pandemic and then a war. We woke up and smelled the coffee. We decided to make it a moment where we engage much more deeply globally and internationally. We lent in and invested much more heavily in our science and technology and stepped up to the global plate and became again a leader, the Cold War Defence scenario, but in tackling these global challenges. If we get it right, we can be a hub for global technology transfer, for the sustainable global development, attract billions into the UK as a testbed for these technologies and we can unlock a generation of prosperity, not just in the UK, but give hope to people all around the world. And so when people say to me, what do you mean by science superpower minister? I'll tell you what I mean. Firstly, world class science always, that we do do. We have five of the world's top ten universities. We outrank every other country on science per pound and science per person. We're really good at science. The key is to get it out of the silo into an innovation economy and to tackle global challenges. I mean science, UK tech for global good. Unless we are actually solving global challenges, we won't attract that thirdly global investment. Whole new industries being created. If we get this right, we can attract a lot of investment into the UK. That requires a combination of big companies and small and the real key to tackling those challenges will be SMEs and innovation and creating a fertile environment for them to grow. It means global talent. It means us insisting that Chinese, Russian, young scientists all around the world can come here and learn what good science is. And it means embedding our science and technology in values. I wouldn't want to live in a world with AI with no values, no framework. We're setting out in the UK to try and lead in some of those frameworks. Crucially, it involves harnessing all of that for geopolitical good. I want to suggest to you that no sector lends itself more to the science superpower agenda than space. It goes right to the heart of everything I've just talked about. From understanding the climate change to the science on the poles, to understanding how the oceans work, to understanding how our atmosphere works, to understanding the fragility of this glorious planet in a wider universe, to being the new frontier for science and exploration in the next generation, and in the most beautiful circular closure in terms of our discovery science, we are now seeing the application of our understanding of atomic systems, of how the universe works, the Einsteinian and 1920s physicists, their theories about how atoms work and how structures work are now being applied in quantum computing to drive a whole new generation of systems and processes. And we're beginning to develop a grand and unified theory of the creation of our planet and our system and our life. And as Carl Sagan put it far better than I can, the truth is becoming increasingly apparent that from the DNA in our teeth to the carbon in our toast to the air in our atmosphere, we are creatures of starbursts. And the understanding of the deep connection between our cellular atomic structures and the structure of our universe holds the key, in fact, to our sun-locking sustainability. So I want to put this sector in the context of the really urgent, inspiring global mission that we face as a planet. And it's in that context that as Minister for Science Superpower in the UK, I'm very proud to be able to keep pumping out the message we've made three very big commitments. Firstly, we've decided to move fast from being a service economy with deep science and silos to a science, technology and innovation economy. You can measure that in lots of ways, but one is funding. OECD average of R&D of GDP, 2.4%. Does anyone know what the UK has been at? Okay, anyone know what Israel is at? Switzerland are at 4.6, Switzerland are at 3.8, Germany at 3.4, going to 3.6, the UK is at 1.7, well 1.9 now. We're a service economy doing amazing science in silos with occasional innovation. So we've said we're going to get to 2.4 fast. We're putting an extra 30 billion in in the next five years. The budget for public R&D in the next three years is 34 billion. It's an awesome responsibility as a former venture capitalist. My job is to deploy that, but most importantly to deploy it in a way that attracts the other number, which will get us to 2.4, because 2.4 is public and private, and that number is 100 billion. We need to attract 100 billion in investment into the UK in the next five years. That's across every sector, life science, space, quantum, fusion, compound semiconductors, the 30 R&D clusters. We can totally do it, but that's the number we have to attract. And again, I would argue that the space sector is completely fundamental to that. We're poised at a moment of the hockey stick of huge commercial growth. And that's why I'm really here today to make this announcement. If we get this right, we have an opportunity as the space sector goes from a 50-year paradigm where it's really been dominated by pretty vertical Cold War defence sovereign capabilities China, Russia, America. We now have a commercial space economy beginning to really take off. We're only in the foothills of this, which is very exciting. The real challenge is how do those smaller nations, us, Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, Norway, how do we shape this new space economy? How do we come together and make sure that it works commercially, that it attracts the billions that are out there to be attracted, but also that it works for all of us? All of us today rely on the space economy for every function, from a satnav in our cars, to our phones, to our computers, to the plane I flew in last night. I mean, we rely on space every day. I think too many people around the country think the space economy is American billionaires doing tourism for their friends or very sort of mischievous threatening military espionage. I don't think people realise that the space sector is on the front line of everyday commercial reality. So if we get this right, we have a chance, I think, to create that third group of nations all around the world in a space for good, dare I say, a commonwealth of nations who believe that space is the new frontier of our economy and our economic and global sustainability and believe in coming together to make that a reality. You will have seen in our national space strategy that we set out 10 areas where we see the UK over the next 10 years with a real opportunity, and this was one of those key areas. For the reasons that Peter, you said at the beginning, we've been doing this for years. We have a long history and legacy, both of space exploration but also of regulation and leadership in sustainability in space but also in net zero, in ESG finance all around the world. And believe me, I've just come in the last two weeks from the G7, from Brussels, from the European Commission, from the horizon, from yesterday, the Eureka Global Innovation Summit. People around the world look at the Brits as the people who set the standards, put the Union Jack behind good standards, we lead in regulation, they trust us and they know that we're a force for good and that is an incredible opportunity in this sector. So, let me just begin to set the scene on the opportunity for us. If you've been in London back in the early days of that age of discovery, the first Elizabethan era, and you've been in London in 1650, you would have found the Royal Society setting up as a coffeehouse. Quite a coffeehouse. First person who gave a lecture was Sir Christopher Wren. I was lucky enough to give a, well, the less distinguished lecture two weeks ago. Pretty awesome list of people who've spoken. The Royal Society, 350 years later. But it started as a coffeehouse for inspired scientists in 17th century London who believed deeply that science was about to drive an enlightenment, that it would smash the tyranny of the unaccountable churches, the tyranny of disease, of superstition that was holding Europe back in a dark age. And they were right. And they did it, and the Royal Society has been a world leader in setting the standards for science. But if you'd gone down the road to what is today just near St Paul's, you would have found another coffeehouse where Lloyds of London started. And Lloyds of London started insuring and underwriting ships. Of course, the UK, a great maritime mercantilist trading nation. They went on to lead in setting the standards for maritime and of course the international maritime organisation led today 400 years later in London. London is the headquarters of shipping, regulation, finance and insurance. Lloyds went on to do it for the railways. They called them by the way ships of the land, interestingly. They went on to do it for roads. Which is the global leader in automotive standards around the world? It's the UK. We have the AA, we have the RAC. We set the standards from those first cars with their horns popping along country roads. We led in the globalisation of vehicle standards. And of course in satellites, interestingly, we did it as well. Lloyds of London insured the first space satellite in 1965. Not a story we tell often enough. They insured the Intel sat for pre-launch damage. They went on from 1974 to 82 to insure hundreds of launches up to about £100 million each. Interestingly, I didn't realise this until I prepared for this speech. They launched in 1984 the first successful salvage operation of the two Rouge satellites in the shuttle. Five astronauts Lloyds funded it.  But we have a major problem. A really serious problem. So today, as you know, there are 8,000 satellites drifting around up there. 68% increase in the last 12 months. We're at the cusp of a massive explosion of particularly Leo satellites. 42% of the satellites up there are inactive, just drifting around. And the Leo satellites, as you well know, are going up there small. I've been lucky enough in the last nine months to see lots of them. I say to people, how big do you think a satellite is? My children say it's about the size of a house, Daddy. I don't know, it's the size of a fridge. I saw one the other day being by Space Forge in Wales, which is the size of a briefcase with a little solar panel that's going to make compound semiconductors. They're launching on the Virgin launch out of the UK this autumn. So this sector is changing fast. It's becoming smaller, much more agile. And those Leo satellites are now beginning to be the new frontier of the space and communications revolution. And these, of course, are much smaller. 500,000 to a million pound insurance. Much smaller market compared to the Geo satellites, which are 200 million. And if you look over what the insurance industry has been saying in the last few years, huge warnings that this is unsustainable. We cannot go on without a proper regulatory framework. Richard Parr, the co-founder of Assure Space last year, warned that we are heading for a real crisis. And the truth is the regulatory framework is simply not fit for purpose. And when we have the UN regulation in the 60s, a magnificent declaration that we don't want to militarise space, we must have a sort of Antarctic view of high space for good for all. And we have the ITAR regulations in America and are completely not fit for purpose. They're coal war regulations designed to protect American missile technology in the coal war. This is not a regulatory basis that will hold or be sustainable for this next phase of commercial space. So I'm here today to make very clear that we are about to make a big move in the UK to try and set this right and to try and galvanise global leadership using Lloyds of London, using our historic role and to set a global commercial framework for the insurability, the licensing, the regulation of commercial satellites so that we drive down the cost for those who comply to the best standards of sustainability, the best supply chains, the best satellite retrieval systems, the best satellite management systems, the recycling of material. If we set the standards well with industry, we will drive over the next five, ten years a huge investment wave from ESG to commercial satellite sector into the sustainability. We have to mainstream sustainability in our commercial sector. So as the Prince of Wales set out yesterday in a really brilliant and inspiring speech, and I wanted just to put on the record my and our gratitude for his support in this. The Royal Family and he particularly have been leaders in so much of this. His father, the Duke of Edinburgh, was a great supporter of the space sector back in the 60s and I can tell you there is no finer ambassador for British values applied in markets than the Prince of Wales and his leadership in this and his commitment to galvanise people internationally is incredibly important and powerful and he made the reference I think that I've been warned by my officials I shouldn't which is to refer to the current space race as a Wild West. He's right, it is a Wild West, there are no rules, very few rules and if we're not careful that will undermine investment in the sector and I think his commitment to anastrakata is a brilliant and noble idea and I think we should allow that to inspire us. The key is to mainstream that in business. You will have seen that in the last year we've made a lot of big commitments through the space strategy, we're strong members of ESA and I've been in the process of debating and discussing with the ESA team how we increase our role and membership there and we're strong supporters of their space safety programme. This year we'll be launching our first UK satellite launch from Cornwall with Virgin and one of the pieces of that jubilee legacy is to raise awareness across the whole country not just of the launch moment and let's hope T-2-1 leads to a successful launch but the journey to launch, the satellites that are going up the people who have manufactured them, the whole journey through so that a new generation can be inspired by what we're doing and we're deeply committed to the work of the Secure World Foundation in this sector. The four announcements that I'm making today form a package. The first is, I'm announcing a review of the UK regulatory framework for all orbital activities. That's to go alongside our space flight safety and regulatory work led by the Department for Transport and the CAA and let me be very clear, our ambition is to lead in the global regulatory standards for orbital activities. We want it to be industry led, government backed and we want to make the UK, the city of London a pioneer in this new commercial market for sustainable space regulation and licensing and today we're publishing the government response to the call for evidence on insurance and liabilities. Secondly, we're making very clear, we see this as a multilateral international project we want to help lead it, galvanize it and catalyze it but we're not declaring UDI and space regulation quite the opposite we want to make a very clear statement that this will be achieved with the help of the UN, ESA, the World Economic Forum all international bodies, the G7 where I raised it last week. Thirdly, we are absolutely committed to building in some metrics and data and we'll start simply, but some simple, accurate metrics that can give people confidence in space sustainability a kite mark, if you like, something that everyone can begin to see in the next few we're not going to take four or five years, this is the next few months we want to get this going fast, people can start to see is that satellite, is that launch, is that program compliant with the best standards of sustainability everything from retrievability, recyclability, energy sustainability and lastly, we're making an additional investment today five million into the space surveillance and tracking capability to boost that and four million into our debris removal program and that's part of our 40 million UK program in addition to which is our ESA funding which is about 400 million a year and our overall space funding for this next three years is just short of six billion, that's across Bays and the MOD so I hope you can see we're making a serious commitment let me just close by saying on the first piece around the regulatory review we want to move fast and we've already set up a task and finish group we want to hear from the industry, we want to hear from small players in the industry big players, we want to hear from the insurance sector, financing sector we want to make sure that there's legal certainty that drives confidence in the sector and that that will support investment into both the UK but also the broader commercial space particularly the Leo satellite industry and I can confirm very clearly that as part of our regulatory work in the UK harnessing our freedoms post Brexit we're working across government, I chair an interim minister of group and I'm working very closely with Minister Trudie Harrison at the DFT we have weekly meetings to manage the liabilities around launch in the UK and we're setting out a join that framework so this won't be dominated by Whitehall departmentalism this is a UK cross government piece on the second announcement of UK regulatory leadership I want to make very clear this is we want it to be industry led, government backed we want to work with scientists, we want to make sure we lead in the metrics the data, the science of sustainability so for example when satellites are retrieved and burnt up in the upper atmosphere what's the science that telling us about the debris what happens to those components it's not good enough just to burn them in the upper atmosphere and say well job done we need to begin to understand the science and the data around the impact the proper impact holistically across the whole sector and the work that the United Nations office for outer space activities is doing and the guidelines for long term sustainability are fundamental to that so we're trying to work with the best data and science available and this is a big research area for the UK as well on the third announcement we are absolutely determined to make sure we move fast and I'm keen to hear from people how quickly we can begin to establish a basic kite mark something that begins to just nudge and change views across the country and for me success will be when people start to say you have to get your orbital licence in the UK because if you're compliant the costs of insurance go down, the costs of licence go down the UK is making it much easier for small operators, for new operators for Leo satellites and we've set out a very simple framework that will drive confidence into the sector and in particular we want to harness the ESG market you will I'm sure all know there is a wall of money flowing into ESG funds many ESG fund managers have said to me minister how can we begin to deploy some of that into the space sector well the answer is we need to give a lead and to show what ESG compliant space technology, space launch, space orbit programmes look like and if we can do that in a simple way to begin with I think we'll start to unlock some of that ESG funding so I hope you can see how serious we are I hope that this will be the beginning of a rapid change in the regulatory framework for space and that in two or three years people will start to say the Brits have made a lead we must all follow and I hope with one foot in the newly independent UK outside the EU free to regulate but strong members of ESA strong members of the European space community strong members of the global community through the G7 and the UN we can start with Prince Charles' help and others around the world we can start to set a proper commercial viable framework for space regulation that not just drives investment into the sector but drives real consumer confidence and investor confidence that we're making space sustainable and we're making space a vehicle to drive global sustainability it's a great challenge I think it's an opportunity for us and I'm very grateful for all of your leadership and my commitment to you is to make sure we do everything we can to make the market work for you thank you


So no longer will we be erased any more, and I will go right into the darkest of places and I will find the recipes of my grandmother that were medicines in my body and no longer be denied it and affirm and assert it in contemporary space today as a solve here forward. I'm going to do praise houses to recall and remember in a way that is restorative for an entire community to have that actual gathering that the ring shot was we can have it again and invite our allies our communities together to restore and repair harms done we can start with historic preservation.


Welcome to The Anxious Morning, where each weekday morning we take a look at ideas, concepts, and lessons designed to help you understand and overcome your anxiety. For more information, visit us at theanxiousmorning.com Nothing about the recovery process is meant to be glorified or romanticized. Quotes about fear, warriors, and goddesses do not apply here. Recovery is about intentionally making oneself uncomfortable and afraid. It is the process of doing hard things to learn that we are capable of doing hard things and working through difficult sensations, thoughts, and emotions. The process is literally dripping with the stuff of songs, poems, inspirational memes, and mediocre keynote addresses given at dime a dozen level-up conferences. But none of that matters here. Recovery is not a test. Recovery is not an initiation into the mentally superior club. Recovery does not earn one a certificate stamped with words like enlightened or awakened. Recovery is not about being a lion, a wolf, an eagle, or any other animal generally associated with badassery. We do not do these things to be hardcore or extreme. We do not do these things to prove to the world that we are strong or brave. We do not do these things with pretense to signal that we share the virtues or characteristics of warriors or dead Roman emperors. We do these things simply to learn. We learn about ourselves and what we are capable of. We learn about the nature of fear and thoughts and emotions, and we learn that all have their place when treated productively and with respect. And even if the learning happens in the dark and in silence with nobody witnessing, it still happens and there is impact. Nobody needs to see your recovery, approve of your recovery, or endorse your recovery methods for it to matter. If this tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, it absolutely does make a sound. It can be really difficult to do hard things without fully understanding why we are doing them. Never lose sight of why we do recovery. We do it to learn. And even if you are doing it while feeling awful with nobody watching and nobody applauding you for your audacious display of warrior spirit. If you are learning, you are winning. Now go learn something about how capable you really are because that will set you free. If you're enjoying the anxious morning and you'd like to get a copy of the podcast delivered into your email inbox every morning, visit the anxious morning dot email and subscribe to the newsletter. If you're listening on Apple or iTunes, take a second and leave a five star rating, maybe write a small review. It really helps me out. And finally, if you find my work useful and you'd like to help keep it free of advertising and sponsorships, you can see all the ways to support the work at the anxious truth dot com slash support. Thanks so much.


What if NASA had needed women astronauts as part of the Apollo program, diversifying its astronaut corps in the 1960s instead of the 1980s? Well, that's the what-if that Apple TV Plus' new show for all mankind looks at. And, since it's something I've spent the better part of three years thinking about, I thought it was worth sitting down for some discussion. So let's dive in. A quick recap for those who haven't seen the show or for whom it's been a while, and if you haven't seen the show yet and want to wait, there will be spoilers, so I'll give you a second right now to bookmark this video and then come back after you've seen it. Okay, let's keep going. Episode 2 ends introducing a new element to the show. We see Cosmonaut Anastasia Belikova on the moon, which spurs President Nixon on to wanting NASA to recruit women astronauts.  Episodes 3 and 4 thus dive into the selection and subsequent training of female astronauts, and episode 4 ends with the first mixed-gender crew launching to the moon on Apollo 15. Now, this is the storyline I've been waiting for since seeing the first trailers months ago, because I was super curious to see how they were going to treat the idea of female astronauts in the Apollo era. Now, I love the impetus for the women's storyline a lot. I love that it's a politically motivated goal because a female cosmonaut was on the moon. This brings really true to reality, so I like that. Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space in June of 1963, and even though we might like to say she became this warrior for women's rights, she has, but her flight was not. Her flight was politically motivated to show that in the Soviet communist system, women and men have the same opportunities, whereas the democratic system in America did not afford the same opportunities. Now, if you disagree with me that Valentina Tereshkova's flight was politically motivated, consider it was another 19 years before another woman flew in space. She was a Soviet Svetlana Savitskaya, who launched because NASA announced that Sally Ride would be the first American woman on a shuttle flight. So politics is a really clear reason to sort of naturally bring women into the Apollo era in this alternate history, but there's another really interesting one as well, and that's science. NASA's fourth group of astronauts was selected in June of 1965, and it was the first class to break with the then traditional mold of all astronauts being test pilots. For this group, NASA was looking at scientists, medical doctors, or other science experts who might have something specific to lend to a mission. Basically, the agency was starting to realize that to get real science returns from these expensive missions, you had to have some science happening. NASA sent a short list of potential astronauts for this group for selection to the National Academy of Sciences for further review, and on that list were four women. Now as we know, none of them were ultimately selected. The group was another all male group, and because there was no media coverage over the potential for these four women to become the first American women in space, there was no media uproar when they weren't selected. It kind of quietly became a footnote in history. Nevertheless, it is a thing that is out there, and I would have loved to see this be the jumping off point for including women in the Apollo program in this show. At this point in the show, the goal is to build a moon base, to keep the competition between the Americans and the Soviets going. So why not bring in women with technical expertise? A geologist? A medical doctor to help keep the crew healthy? Some kind of technical expert. There were PhD women scientists in the country in the 1960s. That would have been a really nice way to seamlessly bring women in and make it not about women, but about scientists who happen to be women. Instead, the show falls into this kind of 1960s sexism and has a NASA group of men selecting women effectively to fill roles. And what this does is kind of have all these women checking off various boxes, and it felt really weird to me. There's Tracy Stevens, the pretty blonde astronaut's wife, who can't get kicked out because she's good for the program. There's a single woman of color, Danielle Poole, who's a former computer, who feels like an attempt to bring in a hidden figure's narrative rather than give her her own backstory. Then there are two women who fill in that sort of traditional hot shop pilot role. There's Molly Cobb, who's like some Top Gun Maverick wannabe, and Patty Doyle, who seems to exist solely as a sparring partner for Molly Cobb. These two women in the for all mankind universe were selected because they were graduates of the Mercury 13 program that had never joined NASA because the program was canceled early. It was at this point that I just straight up yelled at the TV and got like super mad. The Mercury 13 program was not a real program. It had nothing to do with NASA. I would posit that it's not even 13 women. The name Mercury 13 was invented by a Hollywood producer in 1995 for a dateline segment as a play on the Mercury 7. Fun fact, the women who were involved in this program, not that it is even properly called a program, never met. They never all got together as a group. This is as far from a program as you can possibly imagine. Okay, admittedly, this was more annoying for me than it probably is for most people because I've spent the better part of the last three years writing a book on exactly this topic. It was predictable and it was frustrating, and honestly the whole thing just got worse for me again personally because I've been living with this story by the character of Molly Cobb. Molly Cobb is clearly an homage to a real pilot, Jerry Cobb, who is often associated with the Mercury 13 story. Now I've spent the better part of three years unpacking Jerry to understand her role in this story. So when I see Molly, I see two women that are clearly supposed to be similar but are so wildly different. But in a way, I think Molly is kind of the woman that Jerry wishes she could be. Jerry to me would love to be that brash that outspoken and embody that level of confidence that borders on a pretty substantial ego. Though I would say Jerry's ego was pretty healthy in itself. These two women though, however different they are, have one element in common. Neither would have been selected for the astronaut corps. So let's talk about astronaut qualifications for a second because that's ultimately what this boils down to. In the Apollo era, astronauts were chosen from the ranks of test pilots because every mission was effectively a test flight. Each spacecraft differed from the one that flew before it and different mission goals meant that things were constantly in flux. Astronauts had to have the experience and the discipline to react instinctively when something happened really fast in a cockpit, while also still serving as the engineer's eyes and ears in the cockpit. And when you consider that every facet of space flight was pretty much unknown in the 1960s, especially the human side of things, NASA management had to figure out what existing job most closely resembled what might be asked of an astronaut in space, and the answer was a test pilot. But that was only part of it. There was a bigger component than just technical background or flying skill or experience, and that's the personality. From the moment someone was earmarked as a potential astronaut, every conversation was part of the selection process. Were they a team player? Could they argue with the crewmate without causing friction? Would they follow orders? Were they brave without being foolhardy? Could they reign in bravado for the sake of a mission? In short, did they have the right temperament to fly in space? The character of Molly Cobb might have been medically fit and had the right flying background to qualify as an astronaut, but with that attitude, I cannot imagine she would have made it into space. Once Molly is on the crew of Apollo 15, there's in-fighting and one-upsmanship and ego play. The whole thing is just this massive clashing of bad attitudes that I can't imagine they wouldn't all be pulled from the flight, but she's kind of the worst, like, antagonist starting issues for no reason other than to prove herself because she has this massive chip on her shoulder. She's not the team player.  And, okay. And granted, I understand that, like, really good by-the-book-com-engineers-turned-astronauts or compilates-turned-astronauts does not make for good TV. I get that. But ultimately, I just thought her character was so unlikable that when we get that final hero shot, the Saturn V launching off to the moon with the first American woman on board, it's just like, I kind of hate that it's you. And I kind of hate that that's how we're putting forward women astronauts in this show. I just-I really just could not get behind her as a character. Now, once Apollo 15 does get into space, I actually liked her a lot more. I thought they played around with the psychological victory of an American woman in space really, really well. There are scenes with the other female astronauts reading letters that young girls have sent them. And when Molly's in space, mission control reads up letters to her that girls have sent saying how she's so inspiring. This totally echoes a lot of the stuff that I found in researching for my book. A lot of the pilots who were trying to force NASA to change its stance and accept women into the astronaut corps wrote letters either to them directly or to NASA or even the White House. And they were all just these little girls and as young as eight or nine saying how excited they were to grow up in a world where they could also be astronauts. So I love that they brought that element in because that was a very big part of this first kind of wave push to get women into space. And it was a really adorable touch.  So I like that they kind of dropped the female element a little bit for the sake of just having her be completely equal with everyone else on her crew. Like I say, guys, this is a really tough storyline for me personally only because I've spent the better part of three years writing this. I have a physical copy and you can get yours today. All the pre-order links are in the description. And Jerry Cobb is on the cover. Like I said, I spent a lot of time trying to unpack her backstory to understand really why she behaved the way she did and acted the way she did in this push to get NASA to accept women in the 1960s and what her motivations really were. And it was very eye-opening. I won't say more about it now, but it was really interesting what I found versus what typical retelling say. So pre-order today available February 18th. So let me know what you guys think about how the show brings women into the astronaut corps. Did you like it? Did you think it felt realistic or not realistic? What were your thoughts on the characters of the different women? Let me know all of your thoughts and anything you would like to see discussed in future episodes in the comment section below. Also, be sure to follow me across social media for updates on when anything new is happening, any new videos coming out, new topics that we're discussing. And of course, if you never want to miss an episode of The Vintage Space, be sure to subscribe. Thank you guys so much and see you next time.