In December 1986, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager completed the first nonstop, unrefueled flight around the world in the Voyager aircraft. The nine-day journey was a monumental feat of human and machine endurance. The Voyager was designed specifically for this purpose, using lightweight composites to maximize fuel efficiency and cargo capacity.

The Voyager flight was seen as a poetic tribute to the early pioneers of aviation, a bookend to the great record-setting flights of the 1920s and 30s. It inspired a sense of completion and a return to the spirit of exploration in a highly technological age. The event was used by poets as an image of endurance and the human will to explore.