This rare poem by Kathy Kinsley (aka the Bellicose Babe), jogged my memory of something that I instigated in sci.space.policy (preblogging days) right after September 11. Hardly anyone was talking about space policy, and all of the discussion was angry, about what was happening, and wondering what was going to happen next. To break the tension, I started a little space policy haiku contest. Some of them turned into September 11 haiku, so I thought I’d publish a few of them here.

This first one seems appropriate, in light of Professor Reynolds TCS column today:

Freedom

Frontiers give freedom
Freedom makes tyrants tremble
New frontiers we seek

Doug Jones

Here’s another one from Doug:

Healing

Grand goals, uplifting
Sorrow brings tears -and laughter
Catharsis begins

Doug Jones

And a nice one, from Chris Winter:

Lower Manhattan, 9.11.01

Rubble fills the sky.
White dust blows upon the wind,
Covering heroes.

Chris Winter

A couple more from Doug:

Inspiration

Twin towers crash down
Vengeance may lash out blindly
Stars rise above all

Doug Jones

Dual Use

Sabers rattle loud
Swords can also be levers
Lift us up to stars

Doug Jones

Here are two (untitled) from Doug’s boss at XCOR, Jeff Greason:

Pacifists argue
No weapons in space for us!
Others will not wait

Communism falls
Tourists fly Russian rockets
Will we lose the sky?

Jeff Greason

And finally, Andrew Case wrote defiantly:

Carrying On

We do not fear you
Vile Osama bin Laden
We make space haiku

Andrew Case

There were others (pure space policy ones, and good ones, too), but I thought I’d focus more on the war-related ones in this post. I’ve included none of my own because they were space policy.