The Boeing Starliner spacecraft Calypso has returned safely from the International Space Station. It landed at White Sands Space Harbour in New Mexico on 7 September but its two crew members, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, were not on board and will probably remain at the ISS until February next year. Because of technical problems that could have endangered the crew, the planned 10-day trip for Suni and Butch will now be about 8 months which they will spend working 12-14 hours days on the ISS. That wasn’t the plan!
British astronaut Tim Peake launched to the ISS on 15 December 2025 and returned to Earth on 18 June 2016. Tim participated in the first spacewalk outside the ISS by a British astronaut on 15 January 2016. The purpose of the spacewalk was to replace a faulty unit on the station’s solar arrays. After his return Tim said, “Going to space changes you for ever.” Every time he arrives at a space station he is “filled with a sense of awe and wonder.” Other astronauts have also experienced the same kind of unforgettable “overview effect” or “moment of awe.”
In August 2018 Tim gave a talk at Peterborough Cathedral in which he said, “Although I say I’m not religious it doesn’t necessarily mean that I don’t seriously consider that the universe could have been created from intelligent design. There are many things in science that lead us towards that conclusion. From a point of view of seeing how magnificent the Earth is from space and seeing the cosmos from a different perspective, it helps you to relate to that. That’s the macro level. When you look at the smaller scale, the micro level, and you understand quantum mechanics and quantum physics, there are many things that lead us towards intelligent design of the universe.”
Immanuel Kant, the 18th century German philosopher said, “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” In the book of Psalms King David wrote, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech; they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” This led him to ask a question, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place, what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?”