PRESENTATION SHEET:

SLIDE 1: Exhibiting the surprisingly immense amount of religion and spirituality that
goes into the secular endeavor of Space Exploration, including the individual experience
of practicing astronauts in orbit, and how it is perceived by all parties involved on Earth.

It hasn’t appeared as one of highlighted issue in the matters of religious diversity, but
with every turn NASA and the ISS take, it marks another challenge involving religion,
whether it be things out of their control, such locating Mecca for prayer, or their
assignment types of missions, one way trip to Mars recently prohibited to Muslim
astronauts by Islamic Fatwa.

SLIDE 3: Next to Christianity’s Lucifer, Islam’s Shaitan, Judaism’s metaphoric (and un-
sentient) view of Satan, and a world of other Abrahamic faith-based devils, science has
long remained one of western religion’s prominent adversaries.

While dialogue between the two oft-contrasting intellectual systems undoubtedly has
increased as more advancements are continuously made annually (covered in the second
section of this research), it is undeniably difficult to exclude the firm, contrasting stances
both, believers and scientists, grip on separate sides of the conversation. In abridged
form, the dispute entails the following: Religion and science alike seek knowledge of
truth in examining the universe yet dissimilarly. Whereas religion uses sacredness,
scripture, piety, and revelation, science repeatedly declares to disapprove faith-based
truth with the use of empiricism, evidence, and rationale. In another sense, religion
recalls civilizations of antiquity, while science is more akin to temporal modernity and
moving into the future with little being more indicative of that than the treasured
scientific achievement of human expedition into outer space, a secular endeavor that
discordantly brims with the sacred.

SLIDE 4: The inharmonious combination of religion and the secular, scientific work of
space travel are certainly combative in principle, but historically have not been able
disunite. Spanning from the very beginning of the space programs

SLIDE 5: BACK to the days of the 1960’s Cold War between Soviet Russia vs. United
States, space exploration and the space race was at an all time high in gravity, not merely
significant to scientific achievement. Throughout the two “battling” countries, people sat
in front of televisions and radios to check whose orbit was where and who would mark
which part of the solar system with their flag first. Soviets triumphed initially. They
succeeded at sending the first man to journey into space, Yuri Gagarin, on April 12,
1961. “I flew up into space, but didn’t see God,” it is claimed he declared by Soviet
leader Nikita Khruschev to feed his anti-religion campaign in Russia. Contemporaries of
Yuri Gagarin heavily refute the event of that comment being made and in fact say he was
actually a follower of Christianity, but in any case, religion was affixed to space travel in
it’s very first moment.
7 years later, it was the US who made advancements On Christmas Eve of 1968, the
members on Apollo 8 entered the moon’s orbit for the first time in the history of
mankind. Apollo 8 took 10 total passes around the moon’s orbit. On the fourth, William
Anders captured the Earthrise shot that famously appeared in Life magazine. On the
tenth, while watching their now tiny planet ascend over the moon’s horizon, the crew
commenced a broadcast down into the homes of millions at home. Simultaneously
sending close up and grainy live shots of the lunar surface to a viewership estimated at a
billion people, Frank Borman introduced the each member of the expedition: himself,
William Anders, and James Lovell, and then memorably, took turns reciting the
beginning 10 verses of Genesis. Anders began delivering the Bible’s story first as a
spoken accompaniment for the riveting lunar imagery, depicting a narrative that saluted
how far humans had come since creation.

SLIDE 6: as you can see, god and religion was right there with the space exploration and
the tradition continued you on for astronauts, Around the Earth, astronauts of the major
western religions---Jewish, Christian, and Muslim, have all taken their devotions,
ornaments, prayers and beliefs into orbit with them,

Neither NASA nor any space program prohibits bringing religious items on missions, so
these accounts are not the issues for astronauts; the challenge that raises intricate
questions for space travellers at the crossroads of proper spirituality and practicality is
physical adherence and doing so correctly.

SLIDE 12: how often should a Jewish astronaut who watches over 10 sunrises and
sunsets over a 24 hour period observe the Sabbath? The seventh “day” becomes quite
blurry in a space that is orbit lunar distances away, where a single day can mean every 11
hours and at Sabbath lasts the extremely curt time of merely 90 or so minutes, the time
between sunrises in orbit.

Astronaut Ilan Ramon, 2003

He received advice from Chabad Lubavitch rabbi, Zvi Konikov who famously made the
allusion “Jerusalem, we have a problem.” The rabbit ultimately decided he could follow
Cape Canaveral time. Ramon was also the first spaceflight crewmember to request kosher
food, but he was unfortunately killed during the shuttle’s re-entry so not much beyond is
known about his religious experience in space.

He stated in an interview with the BBC that he was not “particularly religious” and
planned on observing Sabbath in space as a representative of the Jewish community
globally especially as the son of a Holocaust survivor.

To Ramon, bringing those traditions into space was just as important as any vital
information being brought back
SLIDE 13: The Malaysian National Space Agency and the National Fatwa Council were
required to answer all of the following in preparation for Malaysian astronaut Sheikh
Muszaphar Shukor’s trip to ISS coming in 2007.

The year prior in 2006, they sponsored a conference in April, inviting scientists, scholars,
and those at the space agency to discuss guidelines for practicing Muslim astronauts. The
result was a published handbook, Guidelines for Performing Islamic Rites at the
International Space Station, delineating lawful adjustments to practice.

Addressing the issue of zero gravity and kneeling, the Malaysian authorities stated that in
space, the astronaut should stand, sit, or lie down in that order of preference. If none of
those are possible, one is allowed to “symbolically indicate the posture with his eyelids”
or to imagine them.

Where is Mecca? The MSNA suggests “the astronaut pray toward Mecca as much as
possible, or at the Earth in general.” It also reads that if it becomes necessary, one may
simply face any direction as long as they are believed to have been facing Mecca at the
beginning of the prayer.

The timeline for daily prayer is also much adjusted and practical: it is not measured by
sunsets and sunrises, but by a 24-hour cycle based on “home” time zone. Hence, five a
day still suffices and if work cannot be stopped to pray, the astronaut may practice shorter
prayers or even combine prayer times.

Ritual cleaning and diet are the most compromised of the traditions as they are practically
not required in space. The astronaut is supposed to “strike his palms on a wall or mirror”
to raise dust as a form of “dry ablution”, but no dust is expected to materialize.

With food, the MNSA booklet says an astronaut should eat enough to ward off hunger,
regardless of the food condition. Ramadan must be made up when back on earth, like a
missed homework assignment for Allah.

Finally, female astronauts are required to cover everything, but their faces and palms.
Alas, some rituals must stay unchanged.

SLIDE 14: The fatwa declared the one way mission as a suicide, a truly unique case of
the Muslim diversity engaging with space exploration

SLIDE 17: These written accounts, along with photos of astronauts floating about their
spaceships surrounded by Crosses, celebrating holy days, and the spectacularly odd video
of astronaut Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor successfully (and correctly) praying according to
MSNA guidelines, demonstrate only a piece of how difficult and unconventional it is for
astronauts to bring God to study the solar system with them.
It is no mystery how space represents something on secular terms. It is after all a strictly
scientific endeavor and space travel neither accomplishes nor attempts to decode the
mysteries religion seeks to resolve.

Yet, no matter how secular the study, wherever living people are sent they will bring the
things most important with them. Religion is certainly one of those things and the
ethereal experience of outer space furnishes their faith with even more significance.

Miles and miles away from the soil they know, many revolutions, sunrises and sunsets
later, these experiences bring astronauts, as they would for all humans, to the doorstep of
their true microscopic size, the world’s unearthly grandeur, and perhaps most
importantly, the enigma of the celestial and it’s meaning. Frankly, no one knows what is
out there, but somehow turning to God, and sometimes not to science, makes all the
sense. As astronaut Tom Jones put it in his memoir Sky Walking, “Never have I felt so
insignificant, part of a scene, so obviously set by God” (316).