Richard Littledale's
Views on the News: February 2003

Of Icarus and Felix

With charred debris scattered across swathes of Texas, it will take a long time to come to terms with all the implications of the Columbia shuttle disaster. Long after the technical questions of 'how' this happened are answered, the deeper, more insistent question of 'why' will remain. Why were these brilliant lives snuffed out? Why did these gifted scientists and pilots allow themselves to be catapulted through space at speeds in excess of 12000 miles an hour anyway? Are the pathetic human fragments amongst the technical wreckage a testament to their bravery or their folly?

In the end it was the curiosity of the cat, rather than the temerity of the young Icarus, which brought about their deaths. Men and women will continue to do such things, fully cognisant of the risks, because the risk of ignorance seems just as great. Our human nature will not allow us to rest content as long as there are things to be discovered which still remain unknown. To see the stars without understanding them, or maybe one day touching them, is to undermine that curiosity with which we are blessed (or cursed, depending on your point of view).

Christians affirm that the same God who created the world and the stars also placed the stamp of his identity on the human spirit. He "set eternity in the hearts of men" (Ecclesiastes 3 v. 11). Our thirst to know, to understand, to describe, is a gift from the Creator. An understanding of stars beyond the human eye may give as much genuine human pleasure to some as an appreciation of the roses in their garden gives to others. The pleasure, whether intellectual or sensory, is a gift to humankind.

The ethnic and religious diversity of the Columbia's crew means that they will be remembered in many ways. However, it is to be hoped that in Christian hearts they will be remembered as evidence of the mixed and glorious blessing of human being.