Dec 24, 2009

Apollo 8 Taught us to Worship the King

Our nation was in a serious slump on December 24, 1968 with the Vietnam War and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. Our nation was torn, our nation was rioting, our nation was angry and confused, passionately wanting to go in different directions.

With a little help from Boeing, Douglas Aircraft and IBM, NASA engineers had been working furiously in the '60's to orbit the moon. President Kennedy boldly proclaimed that we would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. NASA - Marshall Space Flight Center -- had three or four different types of rockets in experimentation and finally agreed upon the C-5, consisting of three stages, about 11 or more engines and renamed it Saturn V to up the cool factor and decrease the nerd factor. (my supposition)
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Throughout the '60's Saturn V was used for all the Apollo missions, taking off from Cape Canaveral. She was shipped down the Mighty Mississip, into the Gulf, around Florida, up the Intra Coastal Waterway to the place where we still launch rockets today, the place where my childhood friend launched to spend two weeks on the space station in '08 while I watched the NASA channel every day eating egg salad sandwiches back to back for some odd reason. I watched him board the space station, work on it and work on it's external frame while tethered to the space station and floating in space, at which point I went outside and waved up at him. Just in case.
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But my point. Back to Dec. 24, 1968 and the dream to orbit the moon. The Saturn V arrived at Cape Canaveral, was boarded by three brave astronauts, and blasted off under the name "Apollo 8," with the men being given a 50/50 chance of returning and surviving.
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On Christmas Eve the astronauts transmitted an image of the lunar surface to tv's all across America. On Christmas Eve, this is the message our astronauts sent back to earth:
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"We are now approaching lunar sunrise and, for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.

'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.....'"
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The astronauts took turns reading the first ten verses of Genesis.

When my friend went to the space station recently, he and his crew had several worshipful moments.
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Amazing how the most scientific among us are brought to their knees in worship.
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Oh, Come, Let us adore Him!

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