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Apollo astronaut: 'You go to heaven when you are born'
Dave Mosher
Business InsiderMarch 11, 2017
View photos earthrise apollo nasa AS8 14 2383HRMore
(The famous "Earthrise" photo taken by Apollo 8 astronauts during their trip around the moon on Dec. 24, 1968.NASA)
It seems like the world has caught a case of moon fever.
On February 27, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk announced that two unnamed people are paying his rocket company, SpaceX, to send them on an auto-piloted trip around the moon in 2018. Later The Washington Post revealed that Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and his own rocket company, Blue Origin, had circulated a 2020 moon colonization plan around Capitol Hill.
But it's not just a gaggle of billionaires who've set their sights on Luna. On Tuesday, Congress passed its first big NASA budget in nearly 7 years. The bill calls on NASA to reach the moon by 2021.
Related Video:
For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.
To bring everything back to Earth a little, we called up Jim Lovell: an astronaut who visited the moon twice, once during Apollo 8 (the first crewed lunar mission) and again on Apollo 13 (which required a storied effort to rescue from disaster).
During a wide-ranging interview, we asked Lovell if there was a moment on Apollo 8 that he wished he spoke more about — and his response floored us.
View photos james jim lovell astronaut apollo 13 nasaMore
(Jim Lovell's formal portrait for the Apollo 13 mission in 1970.NASA)
But first, a little setup.
Apollo 8, which launched aboard a gigantic Saturn V rocket on December 21, 1968, took off during what Lovell called "a hilarious time" for the planet.
"There was the Vietnam War going on, it was not a popular war, especially with the younger people," Lovell told Business Insider. "There were riots, there were two assassinations of prominent people during that period, and so things were looking kind of bad in this country."
And yet at the end of the year, he said, NASA was working toward its commitment, made in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, to send people to the moon before the end of that decade.
"And it happened. So in the last few weeks or days of 1968 we accomplished something that we set out to do that was favorable and approved by just about every body in this country," he said.
However, Lovell said that he and his two crewmates, Frank Borman and Bill Anders, soon realized it was more than "just" a spaceflight.
"You have to remember we brought back a picture of the Earth as it is 240,000 miles away. And the fact is, it gives you a different perspective of the Earth when you see it as three-dimensional between the sun and the moon, and you begin to realize how small and how significant the body is," he said. "When I put my thumb up to the window I could completely hide it, and then I realized that behind my thumb that I'm hiding this Earth, and there are about 6 billion people that are all striving to live there."
Lovell said this moment was a seed being planted, and one that would germinate into full blossom once he was back on Earth.
"You have to really kind of think about our own existence here in the universe. You realize that people often say, 'I hope to go to heaven when I die,'" he said. "In reality, if you think about it, you go to heaven when you're born."
By this Lovell meant the remarkable situation we find ourselves in: floating on a cozy rock that is drifting through the seemingly endless void of space.
View photos moon earth space china castMore
(A rare view of the far side of the moon, taken by the China National Space Administration's lunar probe.Chinese National Space Administration/Xinhuanet)
"You arrive on a planet that has the proper mass, has the gravity to contain water and an atmosphere, which are the very essentials for life," he said. "And you arrive on this planet that's orbiting a star just at the right distance — not too far to be too cold, or too close to be too hot — and just at the right distance to absorb that star's energy and then, with that energy, cause life to evolve here in the first place."
"In reality, you know, God has really given us a stage, just looking at where we were around the moon, a stage on which we perform. And how that play turns out is up to us, I guess," he said.
Trapped on a cosmic stage together, and at a time when the US is again painfullydivided, Lovell's words are ones we could all take to heart.
Note from Lou : Now at first this statement by Lovell seems ridiculous. But in the context that he made it, that is from a place that all three would die a terrible death if they did not get back to the earth very soon; it is not so crazy.
God provided a very GOOD place for man to live. Compared to every other place in this universe, one could call it paradise.
Genesis 1New International Version (NIV)
The Beginning
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God calledthe vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place,and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 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. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
God's creation was VERY GOOD, it is the sinfulness of man that keeps the earth from being paradise.
But even with the sin of mankind, it is paradise compared to any other place in this universe. For we would all die instantly any where but the earth.
Dave Mosher
Business InsiderMarch 11, 2017
View photos earthrise apollo nasa AS8 14 2383HRMore
(The famous "Earthrise" photo taken by Apollo 8 astronauts during their trip around the moon on Dec. 24, 1968.NASA)
It seems like the world has caught a case of moon fever.
On February 27, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk announced that two unnamed people are paying his rocket company, SpaceX, to send them on an auto-piloted trip around the moon in 2018. Later The Washington Post revealed that Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and his own rocket company, Blue Origin, had circulated a 2020 moon colonization plan around Capitol Hill.
But it's not just a gaggle of billionaires who've set their sights on Luna. On Tuesday, Congress passed its first big NASA budget in nearly 7 years. The bill calls on NASA to reach the moon by 2021.
Related Video:
For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.
To bring everything back to Earth a little, we called up Jim Lovell: an astronaut who visited the moon twice, once during Apollo 8 (the first crewed lunar mission) and again on Apollo 13 (which required a storied effort to rescue from disaster).
During a wide-ranging interview, we asked Lovell if there was a moment on Apollo 8 that he wished he spoke more about — and his response floored us.
View photos james jim lovell astronaut apollo 13 nasaMore
(Jim Lovell's formal portrait for the Apollo 13 mission in 1970.NASA)
But first, a little setup.
Apollo 8, which launched aboard a gigantic Saturn V rocket on December 21, 1968, took off during what Lovell called "a hilarious time" for the planet.
"There was the Vietnam War going on, it was not a popular war, especially with the younger people," Lovell told Business Insider. "There were riots, there were two assassinations of prominent people during that period, and so things were looking kind of bad in this country."
And yet at the end of the year, he said, NASA was working toward its commitment, made in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, to send people to the moon before the end of that decade.
"And it happened. So in the last few weeks or days of 1968 we accomplished something that we set out to do that was favorable and approved by just about every body in this country," he said.
However, Lovell said that he and his two crewmates, Frank Borman and Bill Anders, soon realized it was more than "just" a spaceflight.
"You have to remember we brought back a picture of the Earth as it is 240,000 miles away. And the fact is, it gives you a different perspective of the Earth when you see it as three-dimensional between the sun and the moon, and you begin to realize how small and how significant the body is," he said. "When I put my thumb up to the window I could completely hide it, and then I realized that behind my thumb that I'm hiding this Earth, and there are about 6 billion people that are all striving to live there."
Lovell said this moment was a seed being planted, and one that would germinate into full blossom once he was back on Earth.
"You have to really kind of think about our own existence here in the universe. You realize that people often say, 'I hope to go to heaven when I die,'" he said. "In reality, if you think about it, you go to heaven when you're born."
By this Lovell meant the remarkable situation we find ourselves in: floating on a cozy rock that is drifting through the seemingly endless void of space.
View photos moon earth space china castMore
(A rare view of the far side of the moon, taken by the China National Space Administration's lunar probe.Chinese National Space Administration/Xinhuanet)
"You arrive on a planet that has the proper mass, has the gravity to contain water and an atmosphere, which are the very essentials for life," he said. "And you arrive on this planet that's orbiting a star just at the right distance — not too far to be too cold, or too close to be too hot — and just at the right distance to absorb that star's energy and then, with that energy, cause life to evolve here in the first place."
"In reality, you know, God has really given us a stage, just looking at where we were around the moon, a stage on which we perform. And how that play turns out is up to us, I guess," he said.
Trapped on a cosmic stage together, and at a time when the US is again painfullydivided, Lovell's words are ones we could all take to heart.
Note from Lou : Now at first this statement by Lovell seems ridiculous. But in the context that he made it, that is from a place that all three would die a terrible death if they did not get back to the earth very soon; it is not so crazy.
God provided a very GOOD place for man to live. Compared to every other place in this universe, one could call it paradise.
Genesis 1New International Version (NIV)
The Beginning
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God calledthe vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place,and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 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. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
God's creation was VERY GOOD, it is the sinfulness of man that keeps the earth from being paradise.
But even with the sin of mankind, it is paradise compared to any other place in this universe. For we would all die instantly any where but the earth.