Still Going!

 

I celebrated another birthday recently and getting a year older still beats the ultimate alternative. I’ve witnessed literally thousands of inconceivable engineering dreams come to fruition through the tenacity of competition and arduous work. The newest must-have communication device, packaged in the form of a wristwatch, was once a fantasy in the Dick Tracy comic (graphic novel) detective series printed in the daily newspaper (in color on Sunday). As a youngster I grew up in the days of the space race, a time of dreaming while lying on ones back in the grass at night and staring into the sky drinking in the millions of stars therein. 

Sputnik, the Russian probe launched October 4, 1957, decisively changed the world and the electronic age went into a full-blown frenzy of development without looking back. By 1972 there had been journeys to the moon with landings on the moon. Many communication satellites were already orbiting the earth and an international space station was in the works. In 1977 the United States launched a rocket into space. On board was a small craft called Voyager 1, a probe that was jettisoned into space to explore the planets up close. After Voyager finished sending back photos and data from the planet Jupiter and its neighbors, it didn’t stop working, it just kept going. 

* Voyager 1, one of the oldest space probes and the most distant human-made object from Earth, is still doing science. ... But even as it drifts farther and farther from a dimming sun, it's still sending information back to Earth, as scientists reported in The Astrophysical Journal, Apr 28, 2021. * NASA reports, as of November 4, 2021, Voyager 1 is believed to be more than 14.4 billion miles from Earth. * Voyager 1 is the first spacecraft to reach interstellar space. It has remained operational long past expectations and continues to send information about its journeys back to Earth; Jan 19, 2022. * How far can Voyager 1 go before we lose contact? Voyager 1's extended mission is expected to continue until around 2025 when its radioisotope thermoelectric generators will no longer supply enough electric power to operate its scientific instruments. At that time, it will be more than 15.5 billion miles (25 billion km) away from the Earth. * Will Voyager 1 leave the Milky Way? Voyager 1 will leave the solar system aiming toward the constellation Ophiuchus. In the year 40,272 AD (more than 38,100 years from now), Voyager 1 will come within 1.7 light years of an obscure star in the constellation Ursa Minor (the Little Bear or Little Dipper) called AC+79 3888. Will there ever be an end to Voyager’s journey?

[Psalm 102:25] Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. Voyager 1 is traveling at a speed of over 38,000 miles per hour and by now probably over 15 billion miles from earth. That’s mind-boggling! Brilliant scientists have sent a spacecraft to the edge of our solar system which is astounding and absolutely amazing. But that’s absolutely puny compared to what God has done. It would be like hearing someone brag to the architect of a skyscraper that he had explored and traveled all the way to the second floor of that building. We have barely begun to explore the vastness of God’s creation. And every step made by mankind should continue to put us in absolute awe of God’s power and creativity. Even so, billions of dollars are being spent on space telescopes used to delve deeper and deeper into the vast universe, and shamefully for only one reason – to find the limits of God’s realm. Atheists say there is no God and evolutionists say we’re all here by accident. Someone had to design and build Voyager 1 to explore and report data. What is being explored is too wonderous to not also have a designer and builder. There is no limit to God – we cannot become our own god.