Joe Haldeman - The Ballad Of Orbital Hubris Lyrics
They put a colony in space, just to save the human raceAnd they put it in an orbit high and round '[high and round]But the lord's almighty hand said, "This colony won't stand!"And He chuckled as He shoved it to the ground.[CHORUS]And it was sad, Lord, sad. It was sad.It was sad when that colony came down. [In Peoria...]Husbands and wives, little children lost their lives.It was sad when that colony came down.A professor named O'Neill offered us a crazy deal.For just two-hundred-billion he could place... [he could place]An Eden made of rock in a perfect Trojan lockGuaranteed to keep from drifting into space.He had drawn up careful plans to spend 200 million grandTo build a spinning donut full of men [full of men]But someone forgot to say, "Those engineers have got to pray!""Or else Jehovah's gonna want to do 'em in."[CHORUS]Now the Bible says your god is a jealous sort of sodWith a careful sense of His prerogatives. [prerogatives]You put a colony in space without even sayin' graceAnd you really hit Jehovah where he lives.But they took a million tons of lunar dust and Terra's sonsAnd put them in an orbit of Lagrange. [Of Lagrange](But) said the Lord, "This space is zoned just for vacuum, light, andStone.""They're gonna wish that they had stayed home on the range."So with a cosmic kind of love, God gave that colony a shoveInto an orbit tailored to decay. [to decay]Sixteen times it spun around, and then it crashed into the ground.I'm glad I missed Peoria that day![CHORUS]
