To Touch the Face of God: The Sacred, the Profane, and the American Space Program, 1957–1975

Images

The Apollo 17 spacecraft sits atop its Saturn V rocket awaiting launch in November 1972. Before each Apollo mission, Cape Canaveral was illumined like a shrine at night. Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote of the Saturn rocket that was to fire Apollo 8 to the moon: “Radiating light over the heavens, it seems to be the focus of the world, as the Star of Bethlehem once was on another December night centuries ago.” Courtesy of NASA. John Glenn and President John F. Kennedy are greeted by cheering crowds in Cocoa Beach following Glenn’s flight aboard Friendship 7 in February 1962. Senators told Glenn that his mission had been “a great medium for revival of spiritual feelings and spiritual values.” Courtesy of NASA. “And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas; and God saw that it was good.” Earthrise as photographed during the mission of Apollo 8, prior to the crew’s reading from Genesis, in December 1968. Courtesy of NASA. Loretta Lee Fry presents NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine with petitions totaling more than 500,000 signatures in support of the Apollo 8 Genesis reading in March 1969. Courtesy of NASA. The earth from space as seen by Russell Schweickart in March 1969. This photograph, taken by Schweickart from the porch of the Apollo 9 lunar module, shows Dave Scott in the hatch of the command module against the backdrop of the curving earth. “I felt a part of everyone and everything sweeping past me below,” Schweickart later attested. Courtesy of NASA. Wernher von Braun and the Saturn V rocket prior to the launch of Apollo 11 in July 1969. Von Braun had experienced a religious conversion two decades earlier, just after his arrival in the United States. He declared that it was “profoundly important for religious reasons” that mankind travel to other worlds. Courtesy of NASA. President Richard Nixon greeting the Apollo 11 astronauts in their mobile quarantine facility aboard the USS Hornet in July 1969. The president asked the Hornet’s chaplain, Lieutenant Commander John Pirrto, to read a prayer. Courtesy of NASA. The Apollo 13 astronauts on the deck of the USS Iwo Jima after their recovery from the Pacific Ocean in April 1970. The ship’s chaplain, Commander Philip Eldredge Jerauld, offers a prayer of thanks for their safe return. The plight of Apollo 13 had prompted Congress to pass a resolution calling on all Americans to pray for the crew. Courtesy of NASA. Edgar Mitchell took this photograph of Alan Shepard as the two Apollo 14 astronauts explored the lunar surface in February 1971. Mitchell recalled being “struck by an upwelling of obscure feelings” during his time on the moon. These feelings enlarged into a “grand epiphany” during his passage back to Earth. Courtesy of NASA. “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” Apollo 15’s James Irwin recited this line from Psalm 121 as he and Dave Scott explored the Imbrium Basin, at the foot of the Apennine Mountains, in July 1971. Irwin, pictured here with Mount Hadley in the background, felt God’s presence on the moon. Courtesy of NASA. An artist’s rendering of High Flight Lodge, intended to be the headquarters of James Irwin’s High Flight Foundation. Irwin envisaged that the lodge, situated in the Colorado mountains, would serve as a center for High Flight’s retreat ministry. The space-age design included “service modules” (offices, shops, lounges, and a restaurant) and “sleeping modules” as well as a chapel with additional outside seating, leisure facilities, and a space museum. The lodge was never built. Courtesy of the Billy Graham Center Archives and High Flight Foundation. Apollo 17 launches at night, December 1972. Isaac Asimov, watching from a cruise ship anchored offshore, noted that “it was useless to try to speak, for there was nothing to say.” Courtesy of NASA. ...