An Ancient Endeavor

Setting Moon in the Western Sky

April Morning 2011

                                 

Genesis 1:14-19 NIV

And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. God made two great lights--the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning--the fourth day.

I've followed NASA's space program since childhood in the early 1960s. This week marks the end of a milestone: the final liftoff of a space shuttle.

Space Shuttle Endeavour makes her final voyage to the International Space Station before she is retired to Los Angeles' California Science Center.

Perhaps Endeavour is appropriate for the final named shuttle to orbit the Earth, as the space shuttle program was a massive endeavor as Columbia lifted off April 12, 1981, twenty years after Yuri Gagarin orbited Earth in his Soviet Vostok 1 spacecraft.

Gagarin's launch accelerated the space race between Russia and the United States to determine which nation would control the heavens and perhaps the moon first.

America "won" the space race, but soon discovered the cost of the race in terms of lives lost and money spent. Over time, they discovered the need to cooperate with other nations, even Russia, rather than compete against them if humankind were to make gains in space exploration.

Now, as federal funds dry up, NASA is once again at a crossroads. Their purpose and goals are questioned by politicians and the nation.

Although NASA administrators would like to establish a colony on the moon and visit Mars, these ambitious projects are costly.  Private investors in space travel and colonization may prove to be the next avenue for space exploration.

What drives men and women to the stars? To borrow Sir George Mallory's response for climbing Mt. Everest, simply, "Because it's there."

Since God first flung stars into the heavens, men and women have looked upon them in amazement and for inspiration. The desire to break free of the bonds of Earth and to explore God's universe has been an ancient desire. 

However, as one of God's most beautiful and miraculous creations, space is not easily in our reach.  Perhaps one day people will figure out a way to traverse the stars, but not before much pain and sacrifice have been endured by the men and women determined to explore God's wonders in space.

In the meantime, poets have written about the stars and enjoyed them for the beauty they provide.

Below is a poem by Walt Whitman that expresses the poet's admiration for a star-filled night versus an astronomer's lecture.

When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer

When I heard the learn’d astronomer;  

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;  

When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;  

When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,  

How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;         

Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,  

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,  

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

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Lord, thank you for your amazing and perfect sky filled with beauty beyond description.