Will you and I live to see the moon colonized, Mars and the most distant planets explored? Will men soon be journeying to the stars and beyond—exploring our galaxy? Believe it or not, human beings will never explore even a small part of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Here’s why.
by Garner Ted Armstrong
I
was on hand for some of the Gemini-Thor-Agena launches, and was privileged to stand in the press area with microphone in hand, cameras going, when Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. blasted off Cape Kennedy to the moon.The first time I visited Cape Kennedy, I watched a giant "Atlas" missile blast off for a rendezvous with an orbiting, unmanned satellite in man’s first attempt to achieve a link-up in space. I came to realize the incredible steps American space-age technology had taken. I said to my TV crew, "These men are going to go to the moon," with a bit of awe and wonder in my voice.
I doubt if I had really believed it was achievable until that moment. But seeing several other missiles poised on their launching pads; touring the vast facility with my TV crew, remembering the reverberating thunder of that powerful Atlas launch, and then hearing that the missile I had seen blast out across the Atlantic had, minutes later, achieved an orbit which placed it within sight of another orbiting satellite which had been on the other side of earth when the launch occurred—well, I was convinced. These men were indeed going to the moon!
Sure enough, a few years later, I watched as the giant "Saturn" missile, the height of a 36-story building, with its precious human and scientific cargo atop, thundered its way into space behind seven and a half million pounds of thrust. It took four days for the orbiter and lunar lander to commence lunar orbit; time for me to travel northward across the United States and view the actual landing from the home of friends in Orr, Minnesota.
How vividly I recall the words coming back to Houston Space Center, "The eagle has landed," and then, actually seeing, on live television, Neil Armstrong descend from the lunar landing vehicle to step down upon the moon! His words about the "first small step for mankind" went down in history—and are often repeated whenever men speak of future journeys out to the planets, and beyond.
Today, we reflect back on several lunar landings; on missions which collected soil samples, roved the surface of the moon in the "LEM," drove golf balls, and erected a foil-stiffened American flag on the landing site on the "Sea of Tranquility."
All those objects, including the LEM, the footprints, tire tracks, golf balls and the stiffened American flag are still there.
Yet, the moon remains as remote and forbidding as ever. As NASA shifted emphasis from lunar landings to shuttle missions; began planning for an orbiting "space station," Americans began taking shuttle launches for granted. Until disaster struck. The shuttle disaster set America’s space program back many years. Yet, even as I write, the shuttle Discovery completes another orbit of the earth every 90 minutes; its crew busily engaged in scientific experiments. Again, Americans have become accustomed to shuttle launches—millions do not bother to tune in and watch the launch on television, even though each one is publicized.
But another lunar landing?
There are those who doubt the United States has the money or the will to take the enormous risk, to attempt to once again place human beings on the moon. Lunar landings remain vastly expensive, requiring years and years of preparation, huge sums of money, and countless hours of human ingenuity and training.
Missions to the moon do not become "easier" over time. Each mission is fraught with the same dangers as the last.
Will men soon go to Mars? Are real "honeymoons" only a few years away? Many have placed their bids with NASA to be the first "ticket-carrying passengers" to go to the moon, and beyond. Will man soon reach beyond our solar system, and journey to the stars?
The answer is an absolute, emphatic no! Man will never journey to the stars; never explore the Milky Way; never reach even a part of our own galaxy, let alone journey beyond, for man is not omnipotent, not unlimited. Man is bound, held absolutely and rigidly within certain laws which place rigid limits on man’s achievements. With mankind, some things truly are impossible!
For, believe it or not, the Creator of the universe, the Creator who is LAW-giver, has placed immutable LAWS in motion which have in turn placed absolute, impassable barriers before man.
Man will never visit other galaxies.
Science and Dollars
Of course, telling some worshipers of science that there is a God brings forth snorts of derision. Saying "never" to the faithful of the evolutionary cult is to them a kind of space-age blasphemy.
Somehow, millions of Americans have become imbued with the notion that if we throw enough money at the problem, it will be solved.
That is a strange notion, given the scientific track record with the common cold. However, because great strides have been made in such things as organ transplants, vaccines for polio and other diseases, laser surgery and the like, many laymen muse about being quick-frozen at the moment of death, stored in a freezer until some distant date, and then being thawed out to be injected with the new superduper wonderworking miraculous elixir of eternal youth drug which will allow them to function from then on at, say, age 29.
Believe it or not, there are many dead human bodies frozen as rigid as a brick, awaiting just such an event. For faith in science, after all, is a universal religion of our modern technological era. Millions doubt God, but believe wholly, and without reservation, in science.
Was there ever a time when science and technology, in its military applications, stood out more than those electrifying moments when millions of Americans watched "smart bombs" carrying their own TV cameras go right into the doors of hardened bunkers, command and control buildings, and aircraft hangers in Iraq?
Jokingly, CNN cameramen in Baghdad said they watched a cruise missile seem to pause at a street sign, turn the corner, and continue on to its target.
Who can forget General Norman ("Stormin’ Norman") Swartzkopf showing the video of a bomb about to take out a bridge just as a truck sped across? The General said he was going to show a picture of the "luckiest man in Iraq," and, as the truck made it safely to the other side, said, "And now, in his rear view mirror," and, WHAM! a bomb blast blew a huge hole in the middle of the bridge.
Impressive stuff. Most Americans had no idea of the advanced state of America’s "high tech" military weapons.
Can science do anything if enough money is provided? Continually, we are urged to give to dozens of different fund-raising drives aimed at solutions to terrible human afflictions; AIDS, cancer, leukemia, multiple sclerosis—the list is long, and growing.
Demonstrators take the government to task, convinced it would only require more federal money thrown at the problem, and scientists would come up with a wonder drug to cure AIDS.
Those who would dare to suggest science has limitations imposed upon it; that there are unseen barriers beyond which science cannot go would be viewed as uninformed at best, stupid at worst.
If enough federal money were to become available, could our space-age scientists send men to the outermost planets—and on out into our galaxy?
No.
Travel into space—true space, not just the immediate gravitational field of our earth—is impossible for mankind.
That is because God Almighty has established certain immutable laws; laws which govern matter, and the entire universe, which impose limits upon man. There are simply some things which man cannot do.
Limits on Science
Such a statement may irritate some whose faith in science is absolute—unquestioning. Modern idolatry does not feature painted savages sacrificing virgins to leering idols of stone. Instead, it consists of the anti-God, evolutionary, "science-can-do-anything" mind set of millions of people, scientists and laymen alike, who, mesmerized by some of the scientific achievements already mentioned, believe nothing is impossible for science.
Quick-frozen humans being thawed and given life? You bet! Clones? Robots? Genetic selection? Space exploration? Eternal life? You bet! Give scientists enough money, and enough time, and all will be possible. Or so many modern idolaters think.
To suggest that there are limitations imposed upon science by absolute, immutable laws is a kind of anti-scientific blasphemy, a "sin" against the learned men of laboratory research.
Is Technology Bound by Laws?
Take the speed of light, as an example of an absolute limit. If man’s measurements are accurate, light travels through space at the incredible speed of 186,282 miles per second. Light, which scientists did not invent, cannot create; only reflect, refract, observe and measure, is the absolute, ultimate speed attainable in the physical universe.
The universe and our solar system operate according to laws. Those laws involving the speed of light, the creation and/or disintegration of stars; laws of gravity, inertia, the conservation of energy and thermodynamics, are laws which science did not bring into being—did not "invent." Newton didn’t invent gravity when the apple fell on his head—he only attempted to define it.
Science did not invent light, or electricity, or energy, or fire, or water, or air, or life. Scientists cannot create so much as a small segment of an earthworm, or a germ on the hind leg of a salamander.
Science is not the designer, producer, sustainer and regulator of law. Rather, Science must studiously obey the laws IMPOSED upon science by Almighty God. God is CREATOR. He is LAWGIVER, and SUSTAINER of all the laws and forces He has set in motion.
When man unleashes a nuclear explosion, he merely unlocks a tiny portion of the POWER God has compacted within the universe. By causing nuclear fusion, or fission, scientists merely achieve but an infinitesimal mimicry of that which takes place continually in mind-boggling, awesomely massive scale on our sun, and the stars.
God is the "Inventor" of the atom. It is HE who made the hydrogen, the oxygen, the helium atoms; He who made neutrons, protons, and electrons, and the elusive "quarks" science seeks to define.
That each infinitesimal atom is but a tiny microcosm of the universe; that matter itself is but compacted energy is not something science achieved. God is the Creator of all matter, all laws that govern matter, and the laws scientists must OBEY in order to survive.
Science merely seeks to learn more about the basic building materials of our earth, solar system and universe—to learn about origins of matter—where it came from, and why it operates in the way it does.
Nothing can travel faster than light. Nothing.
But that word insults the dreams of worshipers. It is like saying Dagon cannot hear, or Thor is blind. There are those who believe, given enough money and time, science will discover something faster than light. No. No, it won’t.
For scientists, after all, may only operate within given boundaries.
How long has it been since you went to one of the best encyclopedias, and looked up articles on "matter," "light," "mass," "inertia," "falling bodies," "acceleration," "gravity," or ‘‘sun"? Most people have long since forgotten the bits and pieces of the smorgasboard of knowledge they picked up in high school. Many are awed by science writers in their local newspapers, or by TV reports on various scientific experiments. Few are, themselves, scientists.
Why do I say men will never explore our own galaxy?
Simply because of the fact that, even if man could travel at the fastest known speed—the speed of light—-(which he cannot, and never will) it would require about eight and one-half years to reach the nearest star to our earth and return!
Think about that for a few moments. American and Soviet astronauts [a ludicrous misnomer, since none have ever traveled to the stars, and none ever will] have experienced various physical debilities when subjected to the high-tech, but nevertheless severely limited, diets of orbital flight and weightlessness. To be sure, men and women have proven their ability to subject themselves to severe health hazards over fairly protracted periods of time, demonstrating the capacity of humans to survive in the hostile environment of "space."
But eight and one-half years?
Each space flight must carry all the support systems necessary to sustain human life for the duration of the mission. Every ounce of food and water is carefully determined, measured, and stored. Like commercial jets, which are required to carry enough fuel for "IFR reserves," meaning enough to miss an approach at the intended destination and fly on to one or another alternate airport safely, orbital flights must carry enough food, water and oxygen to sustain life if conditions on the ground are unfavorable for recovering the shuttle for a few days.
But they do not carry enough life-support systems for months, or years.
Still, there are those who have fantasized about "space-age Noah’s arks," complete with chemically fertilized soil plots, sheep, chickens, cattle, fluid recycling equipment; a "space ship" within which humans live like farmers and herdsmen, albeit whizzing along through space.
For decades, countless millions have gobbled up space-age fantasies like Star Trek and others. The "Trekkies," as fans of this show are called, probably have little doubt that it is only a matter of enough money, and enough time, and much of what they see on their television sets—carefully produced through models and special effects photography—will become reality. "Trekkies" sit transfixed in front of their television sets watching actors in a studio wearing weird costumes while special effects cause artists’ conceptions of distant stars and planets seem to whizz by, sublimely confident that their heroes are zipping along at perhaps several times the speed of light as brightly-colored planetary bodies seem to pass outside the window.
All this is pure applesauce—"science fiction"—and does not even approach reality.
There is something seriously wrong with our proposal that humans might reach Alpha Centauri, the nearest star, in about eight and one-half years. What is wrong is that the time required is measured by the speed of light, and man simply CANNOT EVER TRAVEL IN A VEHICLE OR BY ANY OTHER MEANS AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT.
But, for the sake of wild, ridiculous argument, let us suppose (and the notion is utterly impossible) that man could somehow propel himself out into space, and achieve the speed of light.
Eight and a half years would be required to journey to Alpha Centauri and back. You think it possible? Forget it. First, don’t lose sight of the fact that man CANNOT TRAVEL AT SUCH A SPEED.
But, even if he could, the trip to the next nearest star beyond Alpha Centauri would take two hundred years!
To this day, many television documentaries about space probes, shuttle flights, space stations and the like remind us of the famous words uttered by Neil Armstrong, "One small step for mankind."
Evolutionists chortle and gurgle over each adventure in space like happy bottle babies, announcing to an anti-God, anticreationist society that such a feat was as "important as the first time man strode ashore from the seas." Like Adolf Hitler insanely predicting, ‘Today Europe, tomorrow the World," some have ridiculously boasted, "And now the moon, but soon the galaxy, and then distant galaxies, and then the WHOLE UNIVERSE!"
This is utter nonsense.
Remember, man cannot travel at the speed of light. But even if he could, it would require more than twenty-five times the length of all recorded human history, 150,000 years, to travel just to the other side of our galaxy!
Is there still someone reading this that thinks it will be done? Knowing the incredible penchant for self-deception; for blind faith in science, there may be. Some people enjoy self-delusion. But read on.
To reach another galaxy—the closest to our own—would require about FIVE MILLION YEARS! To an evolutionist, brainwashed against God and creation, such statements are not daunting. Some imagine, in the vanity of their darkened minds, that man will continually "evolve" into some other, more superior creature, with superior technology, and that such space travel will take place!
Actually, this is nothing but Satan’s counterfeit doctrine of man’s hope for immortality—for space travel, and exploration of the universe itself. Satan wanted to unseat God from His throne; to conquer Heaven itself (Isaiah 14; Ezekiel 28). But God cast Satan down to this earth, where he is confined. Is Satan’s own yearning for unrestricted "space" travel partly behind man’s impossible quest?
Who Is This Speaking?
"To Whom then will ye liken Me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.
"Lift up your eyes on high, and behold Who hath created these things; that bringeth out their host by number: He calleth them all by names for the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power; not one faileth" (Isaiah 40:25,26).
Is this GOD speaking?
To evolutionists, such statements from God’s Word are regarded as the pretentious rhetoric of ancient Hebrew seers—ignorant men of bygone times who, in their lack of "scientific" information about the universe, could only throw up their hands helplessly and say, "God must have made it."
Is there a God?
Paul wrote, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold back [the original Greek is kataballo, meaning to suppress, or hold back the truth in unrighteousness;
"Because that which may be known of God is manifest in [to] them.
"For the invisible things of Him [God is invisible to our human eyes] are clearly seen, being understood by the THINGS THAT ARE MADE [creation, with all its laws and forces], even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse" (Romans 1:18-20)
The "things that are made" include gravity, inertia, light, water, MATTER, and all the laws that act upon it!
All matter is composed of groupings of atoms into molecules. Molecules are, in layman’s language, the smallest particles of matter identifiable. A molecule may consist of only a few atoms, or many.
Each atom is like a tiny universe. It is in constant motion. Scientists have made remarkable progress in identifying the components of an atom. In one sense, each atom is like so much stored energy.
One of the greatest proofs of God is the existence of matter itself—the universe, our solar system, the earth and all it contains. Creation demands a CREATOR.
Another equally powerful proof of God is LAW. The laws which regulate matter govern science. Science does not govern law, did not invent it, cannot alter it. Science does not recognize the great LAWGIVER which set those laws in motion and Who sustains them, but scientists are FORCED to remain within those laws, recognize their Author or not.
Science is bound by limits. Laws must be obeyed by scientists seeking to propel man into an orbit around the earth; laws involving thrust to provide acceleration to overcome inertia and gravity; laws involving intricate mathematical calculations concerning the amount of thrust required to send massive missiles weighing tens of thousands of pounds into earth’s near neighborhood so that the vehicle is held captive by earth’s gravitational field, yet is "weightless," suspended in an airless vacuum of near space orbiting about the earth like a man-made moon. When laws are inadvertently broken, as in the failed fuel cells in the shuttle disaster, terrible tragedy results.
The shuttle’s booster rockets exploded. Deprived of its thrust to overcome gravity, the shuttle was pulled back down to earth, to splash into the Atlantic. We hope the astronauts died quickly. Unfortunately, evidence suggested they knew they were falling; had some few minutes to comprehend the enormity of the disaster that had overtaken them.
When men produce inferior products which do not rigidly obey the laws God has set in motion, tragedy occurs.
Science did not invent these laws. Science cannot truly explain WHY it is that our planet, with its super-heated interior, exerts a strange force upon all the matter of its mantle and crust—a force science calls "gravity."
Those who should know more about WHY THERE MUST BE A DIVINE CREATOR are the scientists themselves, whose studies into highly specialized fields cause them to gape in AWE at the intricacy, the dependability, the fabulous POWER of the universe!
Make no mistake! By no means are all scientists atheists, or evolutionists. There are scientists who have admitted their own observations, experiments, and discoveries have proved to them beyond the shadow of a doubt there is a Divine Being Who CREATED this earth, Who MADE those laws, and Who actively sustains them.
God Has Imposed LIMITS On Man
All fanciful notions aside, there are limits imposed on man, limits beyond which man simply cannot go. We must breathe air, containing oxygen. There is no air in space, for air is part of matter, part of our earth’s three "spheres," or ecosystem. We must drink water, and eat food, which comes from the ground—providing the elements of that earth, from which we came, to sustain our lives.
Remember, man CANNOT build a vehicle which will propel him at the speed of light. But even if he COULD, which he cannot, remember it would require FIVE MILLION YEARS to reach the next closest galaxy to our own.
To understand some of the limits imposed upon man, remember that each orbital space flight includes highly sophisticated determinations of the exact amounts of oxygen, water, and food needed to sustain human life for a given time in an airless, waterless, foodless environment.
Also, man must carry with him the source of energy needed to propel him about, or to return to earth—fuel.
However, when energy is expended, it cannot be recovered and used again. The "first law of thermodynamics" basically states that "energy is always available." The second "law of thermodynamics" basically states that such energy cannot be used over and over again; that energy becomes less and less available for useful work once expended, or transferred from one form to another.
Some dreamers have fantasized about "steak dinners the size of a grain of sand," or a meal so concentrated in its potential energy that future flights into space could store much more food in a much smaller area. Notwithstanding such drivel, only so much energy can be derived from so many atoms of weight! There are absolute minimum volume requirements of the human body. Over this, science has no control, for such volume requirements represent another of the "walls" which limit science.
It is a simple fact that our bodies must ingest a large enough supply of atoms of energy, or we die.
Space flight has demonstrated that the barest minimum amount of weight necessary to sustain life is seven ounces per day of the most nutritious foods possible. Nothing less. Not if one wishes to remain alive.
Now, we can deal with some obvious facts.
Since it would take five million years to journey, at the impossible speed of light, to the nearest galaxy to our own, that would require about 800 million pounds of stored food! How large a launch vehicle would be required to carry a seven ounce meal for space travelers to eat, and survive, as generation after generation of them, for FIVE MILLION YEARS, journeyed toward our nearest galactic neighbor?
And, in five million years, how many political coups, revolutions, and wars would be fought by the astronauts, who would no doubt be experiencing a population explosion, and suffering the effects of overcrowding?
In five million years, given the incredible assertions of evolutionists, why wouldn’t the travelers have "evolved" into something else? Turtles, perhaps?
No, any fanciful notions about man traveling into outer space are just so much blind, ignorant speculation.
Of course, the average layman is not usually told about the limits imposed upon science; about the walls which surround us beyond which we may not pass. Science writers and those interviewed on television about space enjoy making wild predictions like "Today the moon, tomorrow, Mars, then on to the stars!" But man WILL NEVER JOURNEY TO THE STARS. Never.
The universe is out there. Walk outside on the next clear night, and look up at the stars in our own galaxy; the planets in our own sun’s gravitational field. It is vast—endless— incomprehensibly large. One man gave the analogy that empty space between the distant stars in the universe are as if one turned a cubic inch of water into steam, then dispersed the tiny, microscopic bits of moisture through thirty trillion cubic miles of space!
Man has reached the moon. But each journey back to the moon will be just as hazardous as the last one. The moon will remain as it always has—a bleak, foreboding, airless, waterless, foodless, lifeless place—hostile to man, incapable of sustaining human life.
The silly suggestion that man will someday "live on the moon," or "vacation" there, or that young couples will "honeymoon" on the moon, is as ridiculous as suggesting that man will "vacation" two miles deep in the ocean, or atop Mount Everest. "Vacationing" is hardly the term to use to describe man’s attempts to survive in a cruel, inhospitable, airless and waterless environment like the moon.
Will Man Ever Travel in Space?
Nearly two thousand years ago, a group of startled witnesses watched as a Man ascended into space. But this was no ordinary man:
"And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight.
"And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
"Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven" (Acts 1:9-11).
Jesus Christ was now very God. He had said to them, "ALL POWER is given unto Me in heaven and earth..." (Matthew 28:18). Christ was born of God by the resurrection from the dead (I Corinthians 15:20-23). He is called "the first born among many brethren" (Romans 8:29).
Now, as the risen Christ, once again a Member of the Divine Family of God, Christ was in command of the universe. He had inherited all power.
Few professing Christians realize Who, or What, Christ was before His human birth! John’s first chapter plainly says, "In the beginning was the Word [Greek: Logos, meaning Spokesman, or the One Who did the Speaking], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
"The same was in the beginning with God.
"All things [all means ALL, including light, matter, the whole universe and all laws governing it] were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made...He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own [the Jews], and His own received Him not.
"But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name:
"Which were begotten [Greek: gennao, meaning begotten, not yet born], not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
"And the Word was MADE FLESH, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth" (John 1:1-14).
There is simply no possibility of misunderstanding, or misinterpreting these inspired words.
The Member of the Godhead Who said "Let there be light!" is the same Person of the God-family Who became Christ.
Christ of the New Testament is the Creator Who brought the universe, all life, into existence.
God exists in a "place" called "heaven." Man is NOT GOING TO GO TO HEAVEN, but Christ is going to return to this earth. When He does, He will supernaturally catch up those who are alive and who are converted, in whom dwells God’s Holy Spirit; will collect them from all over the earth, and bring them down with Him that same day on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem! (See I Thessalonians 4:17; I Corinthians 15:20-23; Revelation 19:11-16; 5:10; 20:4; Zechariah 14:1-4).
Then, and not until then, man—yet no longer "man," in human form, but members of God’s own family, will, indeed, be able to travel freely in space!
Jesus Christ knows all about Mars (which is not its real name, for God calls all stars and planets by their real names, and not the names of pagan "gods" [which never existed] of "war"); knows about the countless billions of planets held in the gravitational fields of the billions of stars.
Jesus Christ is, now, VERY GOD once again. He dwells in eternity, in God’s heaven. He exists in a different dimension of time and space than we do—the spirit realm. Spirit is not subjected to the laws of which we have spoken in this article—laws like inertia, gravity, and falling bodies.
Christ is not bound by the speed of light.
And God says of us, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
"And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together" (Romans 8:16,17). Christ has inherited the universe. He now has all power. If you and I can become His heirs, to inherit all that He enjoys with God, the Father, that means we can become inheritors of space—of the universe!
-End-
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This publication is intended to be used as a personal study tool. Please know it is not wise to take any man's word for anything, including ours, so prove all things for yourself from the pages of your own Bible. Because your salvation is between you and God, it is through such personal verification that you will gain confidence and come to know for yourself what is truth.
For additional related knowledge and understanding,
may we suggest the following titles:
Believe it or Not…. The Bible Does Not Promise "Heaven"!
What is Your Destiny?
Why You Were Born
The Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association
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