Can an Awe-Inspiring Rocket Launch Bring Glory to God?
- Tom Faletti
- 12 minutes ago
- 7 min read
This SpaceX rocket launch was awe-inspiring because engineers and scientists spent years using their gifts and talents to achieve an amazing goal. When we use the curiosity, creativity, and intellect that God placed in us at our creation, to do good, it is awesome and can bring glory to God.
I spent last week on the Florida Space Coast with my wife and oldest son. We were there to see the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch of Crew-12 to the International Space Station with its 4-person crew. The experience filled me with awe.
This launch was of particular interest to my son because after the Falcon 9 rocket lifts the crew and its capsule toward space, the first and largest stage at the b
ottom of the rocket separates from the second stage and the capsule, returns to Earth, and lands upright on its tail.
Landing upright was the way space travel was envisioned in the science fiction books I read as a child – books by Robert Heinlein, Lester del Rey, Ellen MacGregor, and others. Rockets took off vertically and landed vertically on their tails.
But for the first 50 years of real-world space flight, spaceships did not land on their tails. They mostly landed in the ocean or were dropped back on the land using parachutes.
SpaceX has achieved the dream of the science fiction writers of my childhood: rockets that take off and then return to Earth in their original vertical position.
An awe-inspiring rocket launch
Awe is an emotional response to an experience that takes us outside of our normal existence. We feel awe when we experience or see something that we perceive as wondrous, inspiring, or amazing. We may experience a sense of vastness – and how small or limited we are in comparison. We may experience a feeling of transcendence – either that we are being lifted beyond ourselves or that we are being drawn into something greater than ourselves (“Awe,” John Templeton Foundation, https://www.templeton.org/discoveries/the-science-of-awe).
I experienced a deep sense of awe when I witnessed the launch. It was, indeed, wondrous.
The awe came in 3 stages:
First there was the launch itself, with the blazing fire of the 9 engines. We were 3 miles away, so we did not hear the roar of the engines for 15 seconds, but when it came you could practically feel the roar and the power that it represented.
Two minutes later, the engines of the first-stage booster went dark. High in a now-quiet sky and unseen by us, the booster separated from the rest of the Falcon 9 (i.e., the capsule and the second stage, still attached to each other). Then, the engines of the first-stage booster burst back to life, and the engine of the second stage began to fire. My mouth was agape and the crowd of spectators on the ground was overwhelmed with awe as we watched these two stages perform a careful dance as they moved away from each other and headed in different directions: the booster turning around to return to Earth and the second stage carrying the capsule further into space (where the second stage would separate from the capsule and leave it on its own in orbit). I was totally unprepared for the beauty and technical expertise displayed in this carefully choreographed separation of the stages.
Then after an additional time of quiet darkness as the first stage headed back toward the launch complex, the booster oriented itself again in a vertical position and fired its engines to slow its descent. To the wild cheering of the spectators, the Falcon 9 landed in the upright position so long ago imagined by the science fiction writers.
What was the object of my awe?
Why was I so awed? Toward what did I feel awe?
I was amazed at the beauty of the operation. I was inspired by the efforts of the scientists and engineers who worked so hard to achieve this marvel of human ingenuity and technology. I was filled with wonder and awe as I watched the technological steps executed with such accuracy, skill, and precision.
But there was another element: I also felt awe toward God, the unseen Creator behind all of this, who created the Universe in which this could happen, who created the orderly physical laws upon which all science and engineering depends, who created the processes of nature that allowed humans to develop, who placed in humans the spark of God’s own creativity and intellect so that they could develop the capability to achieve the marvel of sending a rocket into space and landing it back on the Earth.
Even the awesomeness of human achievement can raise our hearts and minds to the Creator who makes all things possible.
Can a space launch give glory to God if that is not its purpose?
I don’t know how many of the scientists and engineers involved in our nation’s space programs believe that what they do gives glory to God. Many scientists are Christians, but SpaceX was not created with a mission to give glory to God. Can it?
Some Christians believe that humans who have not given their lives to Jesus (and maybe even those who have) are totally depraved, so thoroughly infused with sin that they cannot bring glory to God. That view is based on a narrow reading of a few selected verses of Scripture and is not consistent with the broad sweep of what God says in the Bible as a whole.
Psalm 8 asks of God, “What is man [i.e., humanity] that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:4 in most translations, 8:5 in the NABRE).
The psalmist then says to God in the next verse: “Yet you have made him [i.e., humans] a little lower than the angels [or than God or the gods, depending on the Hebrew word Elohim, which usually means God or gods, is translated] and have crowned him [i.e., humans] with glory and honor.”
Why would God crown creatures that are totally depraved with glory and honor? The answer is that they aren’t totally depraved. Humans have a susceptibility to sin, but we still retain the glory and honor given to us by God because we were made in God’s image and sin does not extinguish that image which God placed in every human when he created us.
My recent post on Matthew 5:16 (What is the Light We are Called to Shine?), explores Jesus’s statement that when we do good, we bring glory to God.
If space flight is good, it can bring glory to God, even if the engineers and scientists do not believe in God. The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans, wrote that even nonbelievers can “show that what the law requires is written on their hearts” (Rom. 2:15, NRSV) by their actions. When anyone does good, it honors the source of all good: God.
The scientists and engineers who use their God-given curiosity, intellect, skill, and persistence to develop an accurate understanding of the rules of nature that God gave us honor God in those endeavors. When they use their creativity to develop machines that allow them to explore God’s great Universe, it can bring glory to God even if they don’t believe in God. They are responding to the deep yearnings that were built into our human nature when we were made in the image of God. They are responding to that spark from God by creating things that did not exist before they started their explorations, using the talents given to them by their Creator.
All of these efforts, if done in an ethical manner, can bring glory to God.
You and I can bring glory to God by using our gifts and talents well – and it can be awesome!
When I experienced awe at the launch of Crew-12 to the Space Station, I realized that this launch could bring glory to God because it was the fruit of people, created by God, who were working to use all the gifts and talents and curiosity and creativity that their Creator endowed them with.
We too, by using our gifts and talents, our curiosity, creativity, and intellect, can bring glory to God. And when we do so, we can be open to experiencing awe in the process:
We can be touched by awe when we find the right word to say to someone that lifts their spirits at a difficult time.
We can experience awe when we see the kindness of strangers (Antonia Violante, “Seeking a Science of Awe: A Conversation with Dacher Keltner,” Behavioral Scientist, 21 Feb. 2023, https://behavioralscientist.org/seeking-a-science-of-awe-a-conversation-with-dacher-keltner/).
It is awesome when we recognize a need and fill it before we are asked.
It is wondrous when we use the gifts and talents God has given us to the best of our ability to do the work set before us – however great or small the work is.
All of these actions are awe-inspiring and can bring glory to God.
Not everything we do is as awesome as a space launch. But if our eyes are open to see it, there is awe all around us, and unlimited opportunities to bring glory to God.
How can you bring glory to God, and see the awe in it, today?
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