The Question of Space Travel and What it Means
Today is a big day for the space program. NASA gets a chance, after 2 1/2 years, to show us it can do its stuff. Too often we focus on the two failures - and fail to see the over 100 successful launches of the shuttle and what that means to us.
A poll from CNN shows that 84% of those interviewed said the shuttle program should continue. The more interesting question is whether man should be in space at all. Those private millionaires such as Paul Allen and Bezos are now putting their millions down to make space travel more economical and real to a larger audience.
As to the question of man in space - it’s not really a choice. Since that time long ago when Man was kicked out of the Garden he (and she) has sought to get back there. Man was created for intimacy with God, to praise him, and to find joy in that. They blew it. The early attempt was that Tower of Babel. Man was trying to do it on his own - bad choice. That’s called it Humanism today, and centuries ago it swept southern Europe and is still around today. It exists as a build-it-yourself religion, mixing anything and everything until you have something that is comfortable and doesn’t have any threat or risk and involves no change at the personal level. It was Martin Luther that showed us again that Man can’t do it on His own. It’s an issue of faith, and the Reformation soon swept northern Europe.
Somehow, though, at the personal level that search for the intimacy and place is still there. Morpheus says it well in The Matrix:
“What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.”
It was just a few centuries ago that man moved west to California and the Northwest, looking for that Place that was lost long ago. They took the same risk the astronauts are taking now. Many died in their quest. But it wasn’t a choice. They were looking for Eden. The Catholic priests moved west trying to do correct that fault of the Paraguay Reduction (shown in the film The Mission) before them. Only we blew the whole thing again as we broke covenants and destroyed the culture that was there.
Let’s honor the astronauts today that are willing to take the risk. What message will they bring us from where they go?