NASA Astronaut WITNESSES God’s Power From Outer Space

— folks wonder. And of course, we know when we think of wonder, it demands the creator as its explanation.
What are some of the dynamics that you’ve seen experience in outer space that point us to god?
you see human activity on earth from that vantage point. You see vegetation. You see crops being grown.
And and then you go to realize he made it to be inhabited.
and he precisely designed it, uh, for to support us.
Gonna tell you, I I I feel a little star a little starstruck.
When I was a kid, the thought of being an astronaut was a dream.
Was was that a dream for you as a kid?
I never imagined it would be possible as a kid.
It was, uh, during my time later years at West Point, that I realized there was an opportunity to not only get into flying and become a pilot and then experimental test pilot.
The 1st army astronaut was selected in 78, and that’s uh, 1978 was really when I made it a goal.
I was about twenty years old.
So go back and and give us a little bit more of your background.
you grew up on a dairy farm in in in the coldest place on earth.
Uh, we know that because it was called winter Wisconsin. Wisconsin’s cold enough.
but you have a city called Winter Wisconsin.
Yeah. And it’s a dot on the map. And, actually, I don’t think it was named after the season.
I think it was named after a family by the name of winter.
Okay. If
I recall, but it is cold air guaranteed 40 below every January, but it was a wonderful place to grow up.
You had a military background. You went to West Point. Mhmm.
So at that point, is that where you got in interested in your flying?
Uh, yes. My father was a school teacher and a guidance counselor when I went through my high school years.
And he got, uh, uh, working with recruiters, military recruiters. He got the opportunity to tour all the military academies.
And that’s when I became aware of, uh, West Point in particular and decided to apply because I didn’t have a better idea and, uh, and then I ended up there.
And that path to becoming an astronaut, how difficult is that?
Uh, well, it’s a it’s an endurance.
It’s a, uh, ice set it as a goal in the late seventies. I applied in initially in 1985.
I didn’t get selected until 1996. So it was over a decade of applying to NASA.
I interviewed three times with them over those years and then, uh, finally wore them down and they selected me.
You wore you wore them out.
And then you were also part of the constructing of the International Space Station.
What was that experience like?
Yeah. And the providence of god that just, uh, it it was amazing.
The timing was perfect because I got there before we put up the first element of the space station.
And my entire career then since since 1996 has been dedicated to the building.
My first time there uh, was only 2 modules. It was before the first permanent crew got there.
It was, you know, relatively small. It was a 10 day visit.
Then the next time we were halfway through building it, it was, uh, actually during the time the the space shuttle was grounded to the Columbia accident in 2006.
Uh, it was just one Russian crewmate and me for several months.
We started flying the shuttle again, resumed assembly, I went back in 2009 and through the spring of 10.
We finished the assembly then. Um, and then most most recently in 2016, So my entire career with NASA expand the the building assembly and operation of the International Space Station.
And, you know, it’s not like you just get on a on a on a bus and go to the international space station.
I mean, you’re on a rocket ship.
You’re strapped to these tanks of fuel that are throwing you up into space and into outer space to, like, the Airbnb in the sky the international space station, but you actually have to construct the thing, and you’re there with one guy from Russia.
This sounds like a made up story, but you’ve lived it.
Yes. Yeah.
What is that like being on a rocket ship hearing the roar of those engines?
I I mean, if if you don’t have faith in god, that that’s there’s a good time to get some faith in god because who knows what’s gonna happen?
Well, faith in god is central to it, but you also have to have faith in the team that put rocket together and prepared it for launch.
And, yeah, no, it was amazing. My first flight on the space shuttle. 7a half £1,000,000 of thrust at liftoff.
to — A thrust. — of thrust.
Not a fuel, but a thrust.
Of thrust. Of thrust. 7a half £1,000,000 of thrust at lift off to lift a £4,000,000 vehicle.
which is mostly fuel on board. And you expend that fuel in less than 9 minutes.
And 8 minutes 53 seconds to be exact, and then you’re going 17 1500 miles an hour when the engine cuts off.
How fast?
17,500 miles an hour, which is orbital velocity.
That that’s the speed you have to go to stay in orbit around the earth.
Wow. And and when you’re in the international space station, How big is that?
I mean, are you in a room, a 10 by 10 room, or how big is that?
It started out small. We built it, uh, piece by piece. Each piece is about 40 feet long.
12 feet in diameter, uh, assemble it over all those years.
And now it’s the equivalent volume of a five thousand square foot house.
And it’s orbiting around the earth. Mhmm.
Uh, I I I have here that it’s, uh, going around the earth once every 90 minutes.
That’s right.
Once every hour a half, you’re going all the way around the
earth. 16 times a day. 16
times a day. Think about this.
I mean, from a television and media production perspective in Hollywood, we’re very concerned about lighting. right now.
We have lights set in the in the right places. Uh, shadows need to be in the right places.
You have been able to see different parts of the Earth in relation to the light of the sun so that you can see places during the night, during the day, and during different seasons,
That’s right.
So you’ve been in India in the middle of the night in the winter as well as been able to see India during the day in the middle of the summer.
Yes. Exactly. And not only that, but we’re inclined to the equator 51.6 degrees.
So that means we see the entire earth over that, uh, period of weeks months. except for the polar regions.
Wow. So it’s a great, great vantage point to study the earth.
What does a sunrise and a sunset look like from outer space?
spectacular. I mean, it’s just —
Does it look like this?
It does. It does. In fact, that’s a photograph that I took. And right there in the center, you
can’t pick it up. picture?
I took that picture, and it’s a Florida Peninsula. We’re looking north right there in the center. Wow.
And a little bit off to the right, you see some turquoise blue. That’s the coral reefs of the Bahamas.
Well, what are some of your favorite views from the the the space station?
Um, you know, we we think of views from a from an airplane window, and that’s pretty cool flying over the Grand Canyon, but what do you think of from space?
Oh, I think of lots of things. Uh, the weather patterns, the the sunrises, and sunsets.
We’ve already talked about the Aurora is incredible.
Explain that to us.
The northern lights or southern lights, uh, the what we can see if we go to Northern latitudes in winter times and occasionally see them.
Uh, they’re very dynamic and very brilliant from from orbit.
We don’t see him every orbit, uh, but occasionally, we will see him.
What what causes the aurora lights?
Well, it’s a it’s a intersection of the sun’s energy with the magnetic field around the earth.
and it’s an ionization of particles, uh, incredibly beautiful in greens and whites and in red, uh, spikes that go deep out in space.
Go deep out into space. And you’re seeing this from outer space.
Yes. Yes.
Wow. Talk talk about, um, the what is the coral reef and the Grand Canyon look like from outer space?
Uh, incredible. The, uh, there’s a incredible pattern of color uh, in beauty and invokes beauty.
It invokes wonder. And, of course, we know when we think of wonder, it demands the creator as its explanation.
I’m even told, Jeffrey, that you sounded the alarm about a natural a natural disaster.
I bet she didn’t look like a disaster from where you were.
It looked like a work of art, but an erupting volcano in the evolution I that nobody knew was going on.
Right. And it wasn’t a disaster because nobody lives there. Yeah.
So, yeah, it was a a morning in May of 2006. I was just took a break.
I went back to spend some time with Pavel, my Russian crewmate.
And after the break, I passed over the window so that, uh, we’re passing over the Ellucian Island grab my camera, started taking pictures of one island, then the next island, next island.
Something in the back of my head said that last one didn’t look right. I went back and reframed it.
It was erupting volcano. You could see the entire plume in in the view.
Now I also understand that you’ve been part of, uh, spacewalks as well.
talk about what what is that like getting out of the relative safety and protection of the space station, and now you’re walking.
Where where did you walk, by the way?
It was the highlight of the experience. And we don’t literally walk.
We climb over hand over hand on the outside of the space station.
Okay.
To put the space station together, it required many spacewalks and continues to require spacewalks occasionally just maintaining the space station.
Once we, um, we brought a component up there, for example, on the space shuttle, attached it with a robotic arm initially, but then we had to go outside and and, uh, connect up power lines and data lines and fluid lines and and do other work out there to complete the assembly.
Uh, so in my career, I did 5 spacewalks.
The hardest thing by far we do physically and mentally It’s it’s a mental focus for almost 7 hours each time.
That’s the planned length duration of a spacewalk.
So it’s a it’s a big day in the in the life of, uh, of an astronaut in orbit.
Do you have a sensation of I’m high up in the air.
Like, if you had a fear of heights, would you experience that there? It was like, no.
The context is so different than standing on the top of a building that it doesn’t feel like that.
If you have a fear of heights, you’re probably in the wrong place.
You’re in the wrong business.
I remember going out the door one time in the middle of the night’s night pass, and it was, like, just black as black.
and and going out the door, um, really, and all you could see was what the the the helmet lights were illuminating with structure around you.
and beyond that was black. You couldn’t see stars because of the reflection of the helmet lights off the structure.
Um, and it was like a in abyss. that the —
Like it as biz.
Yeah. So if you have a fear of things like that, that’s you’re probably in the wrong business.
how has your time in space affected you as a believer, your faith in god?
I sometimes get asked the question. Did it change my relationship with god and and the answer is no.
Um, but it deepened what I know of god and appreciate his works in a in a a profound way, uh, because we can only know him through his special revelation through through the word through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Uh, we can only know of him with that experience.
And many, of course, maybe would admit that or whatnot, but we can only know him, uh, through, uh, through Jesus Christ and the work of the spirit and in our heart to open our eyes.
but haven’t had the experience. And I went there as a believer.
Um, and I spent a lot of time trying to study it the experience, using the experience to to to illuminate, to illustrate what the word says about his works of creation, provisioning his creation in unique ways.
and then us bearing the image of god. What what what are the implications of all that from that experience?
Because one common question I get is an extension to that is How can you be in that business of science and be a believer?
I knew going into this job, uh, that I would have to address those questions because they’re it it’s obvious.
The general public believes inherently there’s a conflict that science is all about evolution, all about naturalism, all about humanism, uh, and faith, of course, is separate.
And and and and it’s largely been pushed out of the public square as we know historically, even over decades or or over a 100 years.
Uh, but the so I spent a lot of time trying to study all of the all of the elements of that, all of the aspects of that of that question, um, for obvious reasons.
because I needed I wanted to be able to answer the question.
And the truth is is that science, true science, actually grew out of a a biblical understanding, a biblical worldview.
And it was a very, what I call, the most successful, impactful propaganda campaign in history that started in the in the 1800s really took root in the in the 1800s and then proceeded through the 1900s that produced this perception that there’s a conflict.
but there’s no conflict. Absolutely no conflict.
We all learned about the, uh, what historians call the age of science or the scientific revolution.
And we read about them in textbooks.
Uh, people like Kepler and Isaac Newton and Boyle and Pasteur, uh, Maxwell, they all have laws of nature named after them or or mathematical equations.
What people don’t know, what the textbooks don’t don’t write about is that they were all theologians first.
They were all, uh, convicted by the scripture, and driven by the scripture and their calling as scientists.
It was
it’s really a a a major component of subduing the earth.
and they recognized and assumed a rationality in god’s created order.
um, that there was an ordering of things in the illustrations of that are obvious. Mathematics.
Matt there’s a mathematical order. We launch uh, space shuttle produced in 17a half £1,000,000 of thrust at just the precise moment liftoff pointed in the precise direction fire the engines for a precise length of time and get to that orbit of 17,500 miles an hour with an inclination from the equator of 51.6 degrees.
And then less than 2 days later, about 46 hours later, we dock with a space station going that same speed.
at point 1 feet per second, plus or minus an inch, all because of the mathematical order in god’s creation.
Another example uh, well, physics, chemistry, the periodic table, optics, the precision of optics, you know, with lenses, microscopes and telescopes.
All of that gives evidence of the order that they were convicted of and that I’m convicted of in god’s creation.
and bearing the image of god and the calling of god to subdue it, they that motivated them and their calling as scientists.
Not only did they presume the order, but they presumed the order was precise.
And I believe I contend there’s an infinite precision in god’s ordering and were only limited by our ability to measure it.
And then the 3rd assumption that they had was that the creation was contingent.
In other words, it didn’t it wasn’t obvious to us. It needed to be explored.
The order had to be discovered.
uh, through experimentation, through observation, through an hypothesis, to an experiment, did approve or disprove the hypothesis, and then build on that.
and that that is science. In other words, it’s there to be discovered.
It’s not written on the on the on the outside,
but it’s
there to be covered and
we get the
ability. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And that’s the biblical worldview of the history of civilization and and, uh, and, technological development, for example, is is all based on that.
That is absolutely fantastic. I wanna rewind this later and just listen to everything you said about fourteen times so that I can really understand it.
That just throw throws throws me uh, in my heart and in and in my mind to think about those things.
Uh, I’ve also heard that you’ve taken more photographs of Earth than any other astronaut in history.
And you’ve you have a book, The Work of His Hands, a View of God’s creation from space.
What are you hoping people will take away from this book?
I knew going in that, uh, things happen so fast up there, and you’re so saturated with, uh, just the sensations and the visual and otherwise, uh, that you can’t capture the memories well on your own.
But through a photograph, uh, photograph is permanent, and it captures the memory.
So I was motivated to, uh, to capture as much as I could from that vantage point.
to be able to bring it back to Earth and share it vicariously to those who are interested.
So, yeah, I think they say I’ve stacked up almost a half a million pictures in all the flights.
Wow. And when you’re up into space, what kind of camera stores so many photos.
Is this is this like like an iPhone, or is this — We
started out in film, and then we went to digital, So from 2006, that flight on, it was almost all digital.
Uh, so we’re downloading them all the time to to mission control, and they’re just put into a database.
colonel, I’ve got buddies who are really interested in the NASA program.
Uh, there’s just just they’re just intrigued by space and and black holes and all sorts of phenomenon that they see up in the heavens, uh, the sun, the moon, the stars.
Uh, most of us only dream of going to the places But now that you’ve been up into the heavens and you’ve been around that stuff, uh, do you think that there’s a deeper reason why human beings are so intrigued by outer space?
Uh, absolutely. Most people don’t realize it, but it’s really a reflection of us bearing the image of the creator and having this curiosity, this awe and wonder of things what the the Greeks knew of as the logos, this rationality behind all things.
There there’s a reason we exist. What is it? I can’t comprehend it, but there’s gotta be a reason.
The rationality here, um, and and that’s what the Greeks understood is the logos, which uh, John in the gospel actually attributed to to Christ himself the word.
Wow. I’ve got so many questions so many questions that I wanna ask you.
What what are some of the what are some of the dynamics that you’ve seen experienced in outer space that point us to god?
everything. I mean, there’s so much.
If you view the earth and you see all the evidence of the what is required to support life on the earth, all of the atmosphere of the water cycle.
Uh, you see human activity on the earth from that vantage point you see vegetation, you see crops being grown.
And and then you go to realize he made it to be inhabited.
And he precisely designed it uh, for to support us.
Uh, so that’s certainly a a big part of it.
And then you look at the heavens, you look deep into space, and it puts his glory on display.
It’s a it’s a reflection of his glory. Uh, it could go on and on and on.
I’ve talked about the order. The mathematical order.
We’re able to do it only because of that precise order in his creation.
You you’ve also talked about evidence of god’s sustaining power
— Yes. —
from outer space. Can can can you talk a little bit about that?
Yeah. The scripture says that Jesus Christ not only created all things, but he sustains, uh, his creation or he upholds his creation.
from Hebrews Hebrews chapter 1.
Uh, and what that says is without his ongoing sustaining power, we would cease to exist as creation that we are dependent upon him.
Um, in in science suggests it in the several ways.
There are 4 fundamental forces in nature in in one’s obvious. Gravity.
Gravity.
Electromagnetic forces. are another obvious one to most people. We demonstrate it. We use it.
Uh, we see it all the time. We experience gravity continually.
There’s 2 other forces that they’re called the strong force and the weak force near at the atomic level.
What holds an atom together, you know, a bunch of protons that are positively charge.
You put 2 positive charge, um, objects close together. They wanna repel. Right?
So what holds an atom together? These are hypothesized to be what they call strong and weak force.
So you got gravity electro magnetic strong and weak force. nobody really understands any of them.
They we just know they exist. We can observe them. I believe that that’s a testimony to god’s sustaining power.
uh, over his creation.
It blows my mind to to think of things that we just take for granted like the law of gravity or or optics you were talking about or something as simple as the water in this cup.
The physical properties that make it what it is that allow us to see light, which sometimes acts uh, as a wave, sometimes as a particle, uh, water is able to be a a a vapor and a liquid and a solid at the same time in the same environment, which is very strange, uh, many liquids they wanna condense as they get colder.
water will expand once it freezes.
And that has so much to do with the preservation of life inside of the ocean and streams and lakes.
And you think All of these things that we take for granted are really forces that we observe in science, but don’t really understand the very essence and core of because it’s through the ways of god.
It’s it’s it’s magic in the best kind of way.
It all speaks of design, purpose, plan, And then you go into life, we haven’t even touched biological life.
And you look at the functions of a cell and the growing understanding of the it’s a little factory with control systems and sensors and whatnot.
You go into DNA. It’s even more incredible information.
Um, it it screams of a creator, screams of design purpose.
This is this is just amazing. I wanna read one scripture and ask you one question.
Okay.
David is writing this from the perspective of of earth in the middle east.
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him?
And he’s saying that from the ground, you’ve Been up in the heavens where the stars live and you’ve considered the work of god’s hands and asked the question, Who
am I? Exactly.
That you would even think of me.
This, to me, like looking at an, uh, uh, looking at the ocean and imagining uh, uh, what the beauty of of of all that I’m looking at is really about.
And then the difference is I’m going to the bottom of the ocean with a scuba tank And from that vantage point, I’m in it, and then it’s like on steroids, that question.
Mhmm.
That’s what it’s like for you. You’re not considering the heavens from down here.
you’re in the heaven saying, god, what I’m like this little micro shrimp, uh, out in the middle of space.
Mhmm. And and you sent a savior for me?
Mhmm. Yes. Uh, a lot of people will respond from that perspective and say, I feel so insignificant.
But I’ve been just the opposite.
I feel significant in that god has chosen me in Christ 1, which is the perspective of every believer.
But then for every believer, as we grow to understand what our calling is, what our vocation is.
He has placed each of us individually, uh, uniquely created in the womb of our mother.
in time place and circumstance.
And he, by grace, calls us to himself, to faith, but he also calls us to our time place and circumstance.
And to understand that calling, what what was very obvious to me and what grew in significance was the sense of stewardship, the responsibility to steward the unique experiences that he was giving me and has now given me.
And to steward that, uh, what better way to steward, not for myself.
uh, but to proclaim him through that experience.
That’s awesome.
That’s what calling is. That’s it calling in life. And the different offices that were given.
Man, I can’t wait for your grandkids to hear all these stories.
This is this is gonna be so great.
Uh, last question, now that you’ve been up in the heavens, outer space, what does it make you think about what heaven will be like?
uh, it’s it’s only a glimpse. Right?
We only get a glimpse of our experiences in life that being one possible experience.
And then the descriptions of heaven that were given at the end of Revelation and elsewhere, it just gives us a glimpse but it’s it’s gonna be pure bliss.
And there will be face to face with the with the creator.
uh, only because of his provision in Christ.