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Astronauts Awed by God's Creation


Since the beginning, astronauts of faith have been part of the United States space program, and that tradition continues today.

By the time Col. Patrick Forrester lifted off in June for his second trip into space, he had already settled the important questions.

"Since being here at NASA, I've really come to understand what it really means to have a personal relationship with Christ and to depend on Him for everything," he said.

A retired Army colonel and 14-year NASA veteran, Forrester finds himself often living and working among people of different beliefs or unbelief.

"My prayer many mornings is that for the people I work with to just be drawn to the Christ in me - not to me - to try and understand what it is inside of me that makes me who I am," Forrester explained. " So in this last mission...I was just to be me and to live out that out in front of them."

Floating 200 miles above the earth, Forrester has found special meaning in his more than 25 hours outside the shuttle.

"I remember being out there, and the earth's going by you the way it is, just amazed at the beauty of the earth in ways you couldn't experience from the inside. And I just recognized that God as creator," Forrester recalled.

"People always ask me, 'Did you feel closer to God?' I always say, 'No, I did that before I left.' But they just think that because you're there you're seeing a different God or a different creator, and you're really not. You're just seeing it from a different perspective."

A NASA Milestone

When Endeavor launches with its first teacher on board since 1986, it will be not just another mission but a milestone in NASA's triumph over tragedy in man's quest to explore the

heavens.

Barbara Morgan's desired to serve first led to a teaching career and then to the space program. She was actually the back-up for Christa McCauliffe, who perished in the Challenger accident.

"Being able to train with Christa and the Challenger crew was a lucky thing to be able to do," Morgan said. "I learned so much from them, wanted to fly with them, and those lessons that I learned I carry with me every day in every thing we do."

Working in a highly competitive environment where mistakes can equal loss of life is not Morgan's only challenge.

"My greatest challenge is the one all through - not just for this mission - but all through asto training. Literally, there is so much to learn it would take many lifetimes to learn it all,' Morgan said. "And just like anything you do whether your teaching school or whether you're training for an astronaut, or whether you're a student - you put all you have into it and that's how you're able to give the most."

God's Best Plan

From the Air Force to space exploration, Forrestor believes God's plans are always bigger than our own. He says he was reminded of this in a particularly memorable encounter while working with a missionary in Uganda with a man who still thought the earth was flat.

Forrester said the last night the man asked if he would share his space video. And when he did, the missionary "stood out there looking at the stars and for the first time understood just how big God is and what mighty God he is."

"And I thought that's just so typical - the things I was reluctant to do just because I thought God had something else for me to do there," Forrester said. "It just showed me how God takes the things he has given us and uses them in a much more powerful way than we can ever think."

Former NASA engineer touts creationism

Tom Henderson is not much of a watchmaker. He shakes a small glass jar containing a tiny metallic gear, a brass bezel, a scarred watch crystal and dozens of other nearly microscopic, shiny objects.

But, no watch. He vigorously rattles the container again. Still, no watch. For Henderson, a retired NASA engineer and creationist speaker, that is the point.

No watchmaker — no watch.

He’s carried the somewhat-out-of favor message of special creation to nine foreign countries in the past several decades because he is convinced that how we believe the world came to be it is important.

His is a radical message that challenges both mainline and some evangelical church assumptions, as well as those of the scientific community as a whole: that the first few chapters of Genesis are just as literal and authoritative as the rest of the Bible.

“Years ago, I traveled to Mexico and spoke on the campus of a left-wing university,” he recalled. “During the Q&A on creationism, some there accused me of being a CIA spy.”

Henderson has never been a spy, of course. He has degrees in math, physics and science education and worked at the Johnson Space Center for 37 years.

Creationism is a step beyond the controversial intelligent design movement that has been involved in text book discussions in various parts of the United States.

“Today’s intelligent design movement has done a really good job of showing the complexity of creation — showing that naturalism cannot be the answer,” he said. “Of course, intelligent design only suggests a creator, but as a Bible-believing Christian, I have come to know and I can appreciate what the creator has done.”

Why should the average person in the pew care? Henderson argues that societal decay, theological erosion and moral bankruptcy will ensue if the evolutionary model is embraced.

“The basis for all Christian doctrines is found in the first 11 chapters of Genesis,” he said. “If it is not true, then what is our basis for morality?”

He also said that the evidences he has found for creationism could remove barriers to faith.

“For some people, evolution is a barrier to the good news of Jesus. They feel if evolution is true, Christianity can’t be —and they are right,” he said. “But if evolution is a myth, then they can take that step to faith.”

Although the creationist view has become unpopular in public schools, mass media and other forums, Henderson said that both the Christian school and home-school movement are generally supportive of it.

The Institute of Creation Research, Bob Jones University and other creationist sources produce text books and other materials designed for these groups. National media recently noted the opening of the 60,000-square-foot Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky.

Creation arguments range from disputes over the validity of radioactive dating, the claim that life is irreducibly complex, the observation that most mutations are unfavorable and the theory that only a finely tuned universe can manage to produce stars.

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That was exactly what I was thinking as I read this.