THE LITTLE SPACECRAFT THAT COULD

If you’re inclined, you can turn with me to Hebrews Chapter 1

10“In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth,
    and the heavens are the work of your hands.
¹¹ They will perish, but you remain;
    they will all wear out like a garment.
¹² You will roll them up like a robe;
    like a garment they will be changed.
But you remain the same,
    and your years will never end.”

Tonight I want to spend some time with what has been commonly known as “The Space Race,” and more specifically with one particular spacecraft which was launched almost twenty years after the advent of the Space Race.

And I might say that by the time I conclude my message tonight, you should be able to grasp why I would talk about such a seemingly secular topic behind this church pulpit.

But let’s step back in time a few decades, and allow me to share some personal and national details which are relevant to our discussion.

I recall sitting in Mr. Ball’s 6^th grade class at Bartow Elementary School. The year was 1961. (Interestingly enough, the famous evangelist, Billy Sunday, preached a sermon on what is now the playground of this school; half a century before I attended there). At any rate, on one particular day, Mr. Ball turned on the black & white television in the classroom, pulled up the rabbit ears, and turned the knob to one of the only four channels we had at the time. It was inauguration day. President John F. Kennedy raised his right hand and took the oath of office. Of course, we all remember that fateful day in November of 1963 when an assassin’s bullet took him from us. But some of you may recall something he said during those 1000 days in which he served as the chief executive of the United States.

“During this decade is out, I propose that the United States build a rocket capable to taking man to the moon and bringing him safely back to the earth.”

I can assure you that such stuff fascinated me, and held my attention. No doubt you remember “The Mercury 7” astronauts. The movie, “The Right Stuff” details the competition surrounding and appointment of seven men who would be launched, one by one, into orbit around the earth. My own distant cousin, Alan Shepard, was the first American in space, and John Glenn followed closely behind him.

During my late elementary years and throughout my teen and young adults years, I followed the Space Race very carefully; throughout the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs.

As an adolescent, I visited Cape Canaveral a couple of times, and watched from a nearby beach, as an unmanned version of the Saturn moon rocket lifted off, and disappeared into the clouds. Just a couple of years ago I toured the space center again. As a twenty year old, I sat in front of my television set, and like many of you, watched that grainy black and white live video footage, as Neil Armstrong dropped off the lunar landing module ladder onto the dusty gray soil of our nearest neighbor, the moon.

But as I previously inferred, I am more concerned this evening about one spacecraft, in particular, referred to as Voyager 1, which lifted off from the east coast of Florida in 1977. And as you might imagine, the purpose of this unmanned spacecraft was the exploration of the universe, or at least our little portion of the universe which we refer to as the “Milky Way.”

And also, as you might well imagine, the Voyager 1 spacecraft was outfitted with a myriad of instrumentation designed to not only take photographs of the planets in our solar system, but to measure the composition of the rings of Saturn and atmosphere of Jupiter, and to analyze the solar plasma of the sun, and the fading intensity of its light, as its journey took it further from our nearest star, the sun.

And of course, our scientists would have been left completely unawares without the capability to retrieve the information which Voyager 1 generated. As a result, this spacecraft was outfitted with a radio transmitter, and over the next 40 years it has faithfully continued to transmit data to a team of full time researchers who have faithfully analyzed the information they have received. At this stage, the Voyager is 12 billion miles from earth, and its radio signal takes 17 hours to reach our planet. And surprisingly, since the distance is so great, and the signal so tiny, NASA currently uses dozens of radio telescopes to concentrate the signal enough to make it intelligible, and to be able to interpret it.

The “little spacecraft that could” reached an important milestone five years ago. After a 35 year journey, Voyager 1 left our solar system, and journeyed into what is referred to as interstellar space. Take a moment to consider it. Our solar system, though vast, is just a speck in the Milky Way galaxy; one of billions of similar galaxies in our continually expanding universe. Consider it, if our little spacecraft had the capability to move at the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second, (and it doesn’t) it would take four years to travel to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri.

It is estimated that in three years our little Voyager will be too distant for scientists to receive its signal, but its mission will have only begun.

 For you see, on board the one ton robot is a gold record containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and which are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, who may find them. Interestingly enough, given the vacuum of space, this record is expected to outlast the estimated two million years left in the lifespan of our solar system, and will still be able to be deciphered a billion years from today.

Please turn to John Chapter 1, Verse 1-9

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome^[a] it.

⁶ There was a man sent from God whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. ⁸ He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

⁹ The true light that gives light to everyone coming into the world.

He lights every man, woman, boy and girl who has lives on the earth, or who has ever lived on the earth.

I think the implications of this verse are enormous. And while I have never heard this verse preached, at least not in this manner, it occurs to me that this sentence is all about Christ’ entire ministry towards the population of Planet Earth; including his death on the cross, and His resurrection from the grave.

However, the gold record designed to notify someone out there that billions of intelligent individuals exist, or once existed on a little blue marble called Earth will never be retrieved, nor viewed by someone in a distant civilization in this universe. For you see, there’s simply no one else out there. We are it. There are no other intelligent beings in the universe.

For you see, if there were we can be sure that the angelic being referred to as Satan would have tempted them, as he did Adam and Eve. And it would have been necessary for Christ to have also died a substitutionary death for that civilization, as He did for our own. But 1^st Peter 3:18 tells us that “Christ suffered once for all sin.”

And if He suffered once, we can be sure that He did not suffer twice or three times, and thus He never visited another intelligent civilization for the purpose of dying for them. You see, Voyager 1 is the single most intelligent creation in interstellar space. It is out there “all by its lonely.” Since the spacecraft was created by man, and man was created by God, that little metal flying robot might, in essence, be referred to as, “God’s Grandchild.”

At least the lack of another intelligent civilization in this universe is my theory. And I believe I just finished adequately supporting it. Christ suffered once, and only once for the only populated planet in this universe.

Sometime ago, it was decided that the Voyager 1 spacecraft would turn its camera towards Planet Earth, and take the longest distance ‘selfie’ ever taken; for the elements of which it was formed originated on this planet. As a matter of fact, each of our eight or nine planets, depending on how you count them, ‘posed’ for a photograph that day.

Recently, I was watching a documentary about Voyager 1, and an image of that photo was flashed onto the screen. There in a band of light and debris, you can just make out a tiny speck of light. And as that photo appeared, the narrator spoke.

“From such a vast distance, you can just make it out. A small, blue marble containing earth and seas, and eight billion souls, and the only home that every man, woman, boy and girl ever given the privilege of life would inhabit.”

And my friends, with this, an involuntary sob rose up on my throat, and tears sprang to my eyes. Perhaps you would have had to have been there. But the tiny point of light that is our earth, and the insightful descriptiveness of the narrator just overwhelmed me at that moment.

My friends, we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and the innate abilities which God gave us to do the most magnificent things is nothing short of remarkable. We have been created by an awesome Creator, and have been made in His likeness. And He has bestowed the most remarkable intelligence and abilities upon us, and will to create within us. The Voyager 1 spacecraft is a prime example.

In Psalm 8, we read,

3When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained; 4What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him? 5Yet You have made him a little lower than God (or the angels,), and You crown him with glory and majesty!

In conclusion, let us say, for the sake of argument, that a billion years from now, when our sun and planetary system no longer exist, as we know it, that some alien scientist manages to retrieve that ‘little spacecraft that could,’ and manages to decipher that golden record on board the craft.

And as he or she or it, as the case may be, views photographs depicting the high surf of Hawaii’s Sunset Beach, and the glorious mountain peaks of Scotland’s Isle of Skye, and the ancient Redwood trees of California, and he goes on to listen to the musical strains of Glenn Miller’s orchestra, and the contralto voice of Frances Langford, and he marvels at the architectural wonder which is the new World Trade Center, and he acknowledges the Omnipotence which produced passages such as Genesis 1 and Psalm 23 and John 3:16, perhaps that golden record will serve as a sort of a witness to the glory of the unseen God, and His love for the work of His hands.

By William McDonald, PhD. Copyright pending

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