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Polaris, Tribute to Paul Freehafer, 1944
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POLARIS Paul Freehafter The Good Die Young An Appreciation of PAUL FREEHAFER by Forry Ackerman and friends ~ ~ ~ Gone at 26, leaving Shangri-LA sorrowed, is Paul Robinson Freehafer. He died March 26th, 1944. "Too young to die" is a familiar, heart-rending cry down the ages, and any age would have been too soon for such a swell guy as Paul to go; but for it to happen so suddenly, so unexpectedly. . . Paul never was in good health, but what most of us didn't know was that it was in the cards for him to die an untimely death, that a rheumatic heart had doomed him from the start and it was in fact a wonder that he lived a quarter of a century. A wonder, and a boon to fankind. But Paul! How sad a thing it is that he, who contributed how much we may never know, to the advance of rocketry, should never live to see the dawn of space travel. It was his favorite theme. The fan, Freehafer, member I believe of the California Rocket Society and probably of the American Rocket Society, was professionally engaged in work with five of the greatest minds in rocketry. A crack research chemist, he was supervising junior laboratoricians, as well as assisting higher-ups and tackling astronautical techniques on his own. It might be nice if I could write some flowery spiritual phrases like "...but no matter if Freehafter did not live to see the first interplanetary flight with his own eyes, science fiction stamped him as an explorer of the universe and we may well believe that out there, somewhere, amidst the starry reaches of infinity, the indestructible ego that was he will one day see man's triumph through special senses of a trans-material nature." I do not like to inject my views into this, for it is all for Paul, but I must only briefly explain that such to me is inane; I cannot offer any such grandiloquent finale, for I am an atheist and feel he is gone from us forever, except for photographs of him, his writings and the sound of his voice on a few phonograph records. And the living memory of
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POLARIS Paul Freehafter The Good Die Young An Appreciation of PAUL FREEHAFER by Forry Ackerman and friends ~ ~ ~ Gone at 26, leaving Shangri-LA sorrowed, is Paul Robinson Freehafer. He died March 26th, 1944. "Too young to die" is a familiar, heart-rending cry down the ages, and any age would have been too soon for such a swell guy as Paul to go; but for it to happen so suddenly, so unexpectedly. . . Paul never was in good health, but what most of us didn't know was that it was in the cards for him to die an untimely death, that a rheumatic heart had doomed him from the start and it was in fact a wonder that he lived a quarter of a century. A wonder, and a boon to fankind. But Paul! How sad a thing it is that he, who contributed how much we may never know, to the advance of rocketry, should never live to see the dawn of space travel. It was his favorite theme. The fan, Freehafer, member I believe of the California Rocket Society and probably of the American Rocket Society, was professionally engaged in work with five of the greatest minds in rocketry. A crack research chemist, he was supervising junior laboratoricians, as well as assisting higher-ups and tackling astronautical techniques on his own. It might be nice if I could write some flowery spiritual phrases like "...but no matter if Freehafter did not live to see the first interplanetary flight with his own eyes, science fiction stamped him as an explorer of the universe and we may well believe that out there, somewhere, amidst the starry reaches of infinity, the indestructible ego that was he will one day see man's triumph through special senses of a trans-material nature." I do not like to inject my views into this, for it is all for Paul, but I must only briefly explain that such to me is inane; I cannot offer any such grandiloquent finale, for I am an atheist and feel he is gone from us forever, except for photographs of him, his writings and the sound of his voice on a few phonograph records. And the living memory of
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