WATCH: Astronaut shares teachings of Jesus during lunar flyby
Multiple astronauts have acknowledged Jesus Christ and their faith in him on space missions. The creation account from Genesis was read aloud from Apollo 8, Buzz Aldrin later took communion, coordinating it with his own church, while piloting a lunar landing module.
And from the current moon flyby mission, a preparatory mission to future missions much deeper into space, came the teachings of the Bible:
Artemis II astronaut Victor Glover shared the words just before the craft lost communication during a trip around the dark side of the moon Monday.
He said, “To remind us of one of the most important mysteries on earth, and that is love. Christ said, in response to what was the greatest command? It was to love God with all that you are.
“And he also, being a great teacher, said the second is equal to it, and that is to love your neighbor as yourself. And so, as we prepare to go out of radio communication, we’re still going to feel your love from Earth, and to all of you down there on Earth and around Earth, we love you from the Moon.
“We will see you on the other side.”
He had shared an Easter message earlier: “When we are so far from America, and we can look at the beauty of creation… and when I read the Bible and I look at all of the amazing things that were done for us… You’re on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live in the universe, in the cosmos. Just trust me. You are special. In all of this emptiness, this is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe, you have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist together.”
NASA explained the mission, carrying NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency, left Wednesday on a 10-day journey.
It mission is the first crewed flight under NASA’s Artemis campaign.
It is to test systems and hardware needed to attempt missions beyond the moon, with the goal of a crewed mission to Mars.