Charlie Duke and Apollo 16

This year we were privileged to attend Brentwood Oaks Christian School's Partnership Dinner. The guest speaker was Charles Duke, one of the astronauts that went to the moon. What a joy it was to hear him tell about his experiences! I was very impressed with how he described viewing the moon and the earth from space. He used two passages - I think I found one of them Isaiah 40:22 "He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers." He talked about how the earth looked like a big circle suspended in the heavens. The other one may have been Psalms 102:19 " 19 "The Lord looked down from his sanctuary on high, from heaven he viewed the earth." Both of these passages give a beautiful word picture of how God may see the earth. Certainly it was an incredible experience to see earth from the moon.

Another thing that resonated in my mind - both in space and during the moon walk, there was no night. Reminds me of the
Revelations 22:5 "There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light."



Henry and I were young when the space program began. We remember those first attempts to go into space. We remember the teachers with their radios listening live as the first astronauts flew in space. They brought TV's into our rooms (back when TV's were not part of the normal school day.) so we could see these historic flights. Henry and I were dating when the first Apollo mission went to the moon. We both remember sitting in his parents' garage room watching those first footsteps on the moon. This was exciting news. All the networks suspended programming so that everyone could see this marvel.

And while the space race began as part of the Cold War, it fed our imaginations - travel in space, living in space, traveling to far off galaxies - these felt real and possible.

But times change and priorities change. Our last human visit to the moon was in the 1970's. I would never have dreamed that we would not have gone back. Apparently there are plans to go back to the moon in the 2020's. But that seems a long way away.

Today, the US space program is relying on aging space shuttles and small rocket launches to put what needs to be up in orbit around the earth. I thought we would have a new design with more working shuttles by now.

Yes, we humans have plenty of problems and things that require money expenditures here on earth. But the money spent on the space program brought side benefits from the research.

I hope that something will happen to ignite that imagination and zeal for real space travel again. I would much rather spend money on new space technology for travel to the moon and planets than on new weapons and military spending to fight terrorism. (Yes, we do have to fight terrorism - I just wish that people could learn to live peacefully here on earth. Since that can't happen - yes, let's go to space to give everyone more room to live peacefully.)