By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — One perk that comes with floating
aboard the International Space Station is NASA arranges for occasional calls
with celebrities to keep the astronauts’ spirits high during their monthslong
flights.
Before his first space mission began this year, Catholic
astronaut Mark Vande Hei of Falls Church, Virginia, requested a call from Pope
Francis, and Oct. 26 his wish upon a star came true.
The pope linked up live from the Vatican with the six-man
crew as they orbited 250 miles above Earth.
“Good morning, good evening,” the pope told the
crew at 3 p.m. Rome time “because when you are in space, you never
know” what the real time is.
During their 20-minute link-up, Pope Francis asked five
questions about how their unique perspective from the frontier of the universe
has changed or enriched them and what lessons they could share with people back
on Earth.
Saying society today is very individualistic, but what is
needed is collaboration, the pope asked them how the ISS is an example of that collaboration.
Flight engineer Joseph Acaba of Inglewood, California,
said it is the diversity of each individual that makes the team stronger.
“We need to embrace who we are as individuals and
respect those around us, and by working together we can do things much greater
than we could do as individuals,” he told the pope.
Pope Francis said they were like a tiny United Nations,
in which the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. Thanking them for
their work, he said they were “representatives of the whole human
family” working on such an important project in space.
When the pope asked what brought them joy during their
long mission, Commander Randolph Bresnik from Fort Knox, Kentucky, told the
pope that it was being able to see every day “God’s creation maybe a
little bit from his perspective.”
Bresnik, a Baptist, said, “People cannot come up
here and see the indescribable beauty of our earth and not be touched in their
souls.” His fellow crewmembers were also Christians: two Russian Orthodox
and three Catholics.
“We see the peace and serenity of our planet as it
goes around 10 kilometers (six miles) a second, and there are no borders, there
is no conflict, it’s just peaceful,” Bresnik said. “And you see the
thinness of the atmosphere and it makes you realize how fragile our existence
here is.”
The commander said he hoped the beautiful images they
capture from space and their example as international crewmembers successfully
working together would be an inspiration and a model for the rest of the world.
The pope said he was struck by Bresnik’s awareness of the
fragility of the earth and humanity’s capacity to destroy it, but also the hope
and inspiration the astronauts could feel.
When asked by the pope what has surprised them most about
living in the ISS, Vande Hei said it was how differently things looked from
such a unique perspective. He said it was also “unsettling” to be in
constant rotation and have to orient himself by deciding himself what was
“up” or “down.”
“This is truly human thing — the ability to
decide,” the pope replied.
When asked what made them want to become astronauts,
Russian flight engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy said his grandfather was his biggest
inspiration because he had been the chief engineer on the Soviet team that
built Sputnik, the first artificial satellite successfully launched into
earth’s orbit. “So for me, it is a great honor to continue what he was
doing to fulfill his dreams,” said Ryazanskiy.
After Pope Francis asked for their thoughts about Dante
Alighieri’s verse in the Divine Comedy that love was the force that “moves
the sun and the stars,” Russian flight engineer Alexander Misurkin said
only love gives you the strength to give yourself for others.
Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli said he hoped that
someday people like the pope, “not just engineers, physicists,” but
poets, theologians, philosophers and writers “can come here to space,
which will certainly be (the case) in the future, I would like for them to be
able to come here to explore what it means to have a human being in
space.”
It was the second time a pope has called ISS crewmembers;
Pope Benedict XVI spoke with 12 astronauts in 2011, praising them for their
courage and commitment and for their comments on how science can contribute to
the pursuit of peace and the protection of a fragile planet.
Nespoli was present on the
ISS for both calls. Among the small number of personal possessions the devout
Catholic is allowed onboard, he keeps a prayer card of St. Padre Pio and an
olive branch he received from Pope Francis as a reminder of the importance of
taking care of earth “our common home.”
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