three hundred nineteen


 This is the surface of Mars. 
 I was an average boy who dreamed of being an astronaut. I fell in love with the X-15 rocket plane and later the NASA manned rockets.

X-15 Program

The X-15 program began way before manned rocket flights. Most do not know these men were the first to enter space and experience weightlessness, the vacuum of space and reentry. Every flight was experimental. These men were bigger then life, they did these amazing flights in secret. 
The level of engineering was decades before the availability of fast computers. During the X-15 program, 12 pilots flew a combined 199 flights. Of these, 8 pilots flew a combined 13 flights which met the Air Force spaceflight criterion by exceeding the altitude of 50 miles, thus qualifying these pilots as being astronauts. The Air Force pilots qualified for military astronaut wings immediately, while the civilian pilots were eventually awarded NASA astronaut wings in 2005, 35 years after the last X-15 flight.
The X-15's highest speed, 4,520 miles per hour, was achieved on 3 October 1967, when William J. Knight flew at Mach 6.7 at an altitude of 102,100 feet or 19.34 miles. This set the official world record for the highest speed ever recorded by a crewed, powered aircraft, which remains unbroken.
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I owned a small refractor telescope and was part of a team of nerds who recorded meteor shower data and toured college and private observatories. I followed every satellite launch and every televised manned space launch from the suborbital Mercury flights, the Gemini space walks and the Apollo moon landings. 

I have always gazed into the emptiness of space and pondered the mystery of the stars like man has done from the beginning.


After we beat the Russians to the moon somehow we got distracted. We redirected our budgets and focused on the International Space Station and Space Shuttle program. Our hunger for space exploration morphed into an introverted science experiment. 

Moon Landing Moments You Have Not Seen

We developed communication satellites, global positioning, weather satellites and the all important spy satellites. These were all important and extremely profitable projects. We all enjoy the benefits of this knowledge and convenience. We no longer stare at the heavens with wonder instead we stare at our smartphone screens and take pictures of ourselves. What happened to our national curiosity to explore.

Finally we began to focus on Mars and Jupiter sending several orbiting survey satellites and rovers to explore their surface and understand their origin. The amazing pictures are certainly mind blowing.
There has been a remnant of interest in exploration. We did launch Hubble and developed radio telescope systems around the globe. We spent decades listening to empty space for signs of life but eventually ran out of funding. These combined with high speed computing have helped us see and understand more and more about the mystery of space.

I understand our tax dollars should go to good use but seriously wasting money seems to be our politicians purpose. I understand spending money on a space probe won't fix pot holes but they won't get fixed anyway because politicians are more motivated to spend tax dollars on fixing holes in their poll numbers

It seems the public likes the idea of putting people on Mars. Perhaps this is because the astronauts could post selfies to stare at on our Twitter feed. I don't share that vision. I think we get more bang for our buck with unmanned space probes. 

I believe we should send an expendable piece of equipment not humans. I know we could fill our probes with willing humans but breathing eating and pooping are a problem. Being there or seeing and knowing what is there does have an emotional difference but the practicality of walking on other worlds is only a fantasy with our existing technology.

Mars
We have landed on comets, driven and flown hundreds of miles on Mars. We have walked on, retrieved rocks and mapped the surface of Earth's Moon. We have penetrated the atmosphere of Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and a few of their moons. We have launched probes into our sun and now with the newest Webb space telescope seen light that began 13 billion years ago.

The most fascinating in my opinion are the early long-range probes we sent into interstellar space. Voyager 1 and 2 and Pioneer 10 and 11 were launched in the 70's and have long ago slipped from the headlines. They have long ago lost most of their sensors and depleted their limited battery technology. They have become mostly dormant pieces of human made technology hurling through the emptiness of space.
They are the first to enter interstellar space where they are almost free from the influence of our sun, the solar winds, gravity and magnetic fields. These probes launched over 40 years ago are farther away from earth then any man made object we know of. 

Jupiter

These discoveries are a tribute to man's ingenuity but I believe God has allowed us to see many of these things. These probes have out lived any of the designers expectations. They were designed to confirm what scientists thought they knew but they were continuously shocked at what was revealed.  

The idea that we completely understand anything about the vastness of space seems foolish to me. Science is continuously revealing facts that point to a creator or designer God. I know this is mocked in the media but behind the scenes serious scientists are quietly accepting this fact.
 
As the probes passed by Jupiter and Saturn, as the data was analyzed the scientists had to adjust their previous conclusions. Many times they discovered theories and published understandings were wrong. They handled this contradiction with the the usual childlike response, "I knew that", took credit and hoped you would forget what they had said before. I think God has a sense of humor because he helped pull back the curtain of his magnificent creation.

Voyager 1 & 2   Pioneer 10 & 11   New Horizons (not pictured)
Voyager current Status  Voyager video Pioneer video  New Horizon video

I'm comforted by the reality of being only a small speck in the universe designed and created by a loving God. I feel that peace on my bicycle in the middle of Nevada or on the ocean in a small boat far from shore. Many people feel alone and are terrified of this, they have an all consuming need to control and understand everything.

James Webb Telescope

The point of this post is to examine two things. One is the curiosity to explore and the other is to choose how you want to perceive the universe. I want to see everything but I choose to see it with wonder. I don't have to have every answer but I do enjoy testing and exploring what I see.

Neil Armstrong was a Christian who had experienced the wonder of space travel and was the first human to walk on the surface of the moon, that is a hard act to follow. In interviews he said something I hold onto; "Walking on the moon was a great adventure but I look forward to an even greater adventure, what is revealed after this life". 

I marvel at this present physical universe but I wonder and look forward to the next.

A good book I found...... 

A fact filled well referenced book that examines the most current scientific discoveries in a straight forward way. If nothing else it will make you think. If you are a follower of my blog that is my only goal, to get people to think.
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