Good evening brethren!  May this Sabbath evening find you doing well!

Cars in space?

Did you hear the big news this week?  A Tesla Roadster was shot into space via a SpaceX Heavy rocket.  For those unfamiliar with the story, here's the short version: Human beings just shot a convertible into space with an enormous rocket.  Why?  Because Elon Musk wanted to.  Elon Musk, as you may know, is the CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla, and is an entrepreneur and engineer unfamiliar with the phrase, 'It can't be done.'  You can see a live feed from the car here.  Note: The space suit is empty.  It too is a showcase of technology...

Why bother?

As an engineer, everything about this fascinates me.  Some people might wonder, 'Why launch a convertible into space?'  From and engineering/science/financial standpoint, it has little to do with the car.  It's more about the ability to launch and re-use the rocket.  Launching things into space is neither easy, nor cheap.  If we can begin to re-use the equipment, the entire process gets both easier and cheaper.  The two side rocket boosters used to launch this rocket successfully piloted themselves back to Earth, intact, and can be used again.  More about that here.

While Elon Musk is not known for his belief in God, all of this does illustrate a Biblical point.  In Genesis 11, we read the story about the tower of Babel.  With everyone working together, the Lord observed in verse 6 (NKJV), "Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them."  Of course, the people had in mind to place themselves above God, so their language was confounded and the building of the tower of Babel came to an abrupt conclusion. 

While some may speculate that man launching things into space is a modern day effort to show human superiority over the idea of God, that is not the point.  The point is this: Once man has proposed to do something, there is nothing that he can't do.  That's not just the philosophy of a modern billionaire, those are the words of the Living God!

Another point of view

I look at it this particular rocket launch with a great sense of admiration.  Not just from an engineering standpoint.  Not just in the resolve of someone who would not accept 'no' for an answer when others said it couldn't be done.  Rather, the most fascinating thing to me is that God has given mankind the ability to think and reason to do such marvelous and awesome things!

Job 32:8 reads, "But there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding." This spirit of man is distinctly different from God's Holy Spirit He offers to us.  The human spirit is susceptible to mistakes, and cannot bring eternal life as God's Spirit can.  But the human spirit is amazing AND is given to us by our gracious Father to give us understanding.  May we be thankful for both the understanding of the human spirit and the gracious gift of eternal life through the Holy Spirit!