We as thinking Christians should start to grapple with the fact that Earth is like Eden in this vast universe. G~d knows we will leave even if we didn’t know before hand. Why not try understand how our LORD would want us to embody that loss of innocence, so that we might return to a love renewed by our wounded knowledge? The expansion of Christianity by true knowledge of a Cosmic Christ will be profound. The saving of Worlds by one world’s blessing, one species’ who was chosen not because they were worthy, but unworthy.

The embodiment of the idea is the most important aspect of the idea, for it encompasses parts of the idea we don’t yet understand. As Christians we should know this better than most. The Jewish people gave us the Tanakh which embodied G~d’s specific love for a special animal. The word for Christians then became flesh and dwelt. Humans must go and then make abode.

Going straight to Mars is the proper province of National Governments. It also furthers the principle of the Good Book to go forth and multiply. Ours is a Space G~d should not this apply beyond Earth? Or do the Trinities Directives apply only to the Earth, the proper domain of Christianity? We give up this point to atheists at our own peril. Should we not as Christians seize this issue of peopling worlds to show us more humanistic than scared atheistic thinkers who denigrate man’s importance of being and discovering?

It is not a matter of what can be done with robots verse humans. It is what questions won’t be asked, if human minds don’t embody the visions that we see and find? We don’t know what we don’t know….. Humans find these questions better on location than remotes.

I must admit that this is the first time I’ve been offended by First Things. I grew up on the stuff. If God ever created a finer drink, I’ve never tasted it.

Now I’ll grant that robotic missions can gather a lot of information and might be the best for the short term, or perhaps even most of the missions. But data so acquired is heavily dependent on knowing what to look for. It also is heavily dependent on our knowledge of what our tools can do and what tools we choose.

A manned mission can gather information that an unmanned mission can’t. An example of information from the Moon missions which was not detected from the equipment is that moon dust smells like gunpowder. There’s also the aspect of finding the unexpected, which Man is perhaps the best at.

I know, I know, none of this is an argument for millions of dollars in exploration, but it definitely changed my young life.