One of the good guys

I once met a scientist who also happened to be an astronaut on a plane. This guy was really fascinating. He was a biochemist and was conducting experiments on the space shuttle. His experiment was to grow crystals from proteins. In essence they grow perfectly in space because there is no gravity. Why is this important? Because if a perfect crystal can be produced, its molecular structure can be accurately mapped right down to each individual atom by subjecting it to x-rays. Why is that important? Because once the atomic structure is known exactly, drugs can easily and quickly be engineered and developed to accomplish all kinds of things like cure diseases and kill bad bugs and so forth.

Wow! What disease was he working toward curing? Anthrax. He has developed a drug that will kill anthrax and can even be taken in the form of a pill ahead of time to prevent it. He referred to it as an anthrax prophylactic. Then he told me that a terrorist could disperse a thimble full of anthrax using a common atomizer and in an afternoon wipe out 1/3rd of the population of Washington D.C. The people would die in less than a week. Anthrax causes death by suffocation. The “bugs” fill up your lungs and the blood and volume of bacteria in effect smother you to death. There is currently more concern over this threat by those “in the know” than over the threat of nuclear war.



Meeting him and hearing all of this made me think about our classic
battle between good and evil. How some are Hell bent towards
destroying God’s creations and how others are fighting them “tooth and
nail”, even in outer space. Good will ultimately win the war against
evil, but there are many battles that must be fought first. We cannot all be astronauts and fight the good fight personally, but we can all be a part of missions like this one by praying for those who risk their
lives for the greater good of the rest of us. Incidentally the odds of
another shuttle blowing up are one in twenty-six, or one in
seventy-eight, according to whether or not you believe NASA, or the
Air Force. Either way it is dangerous business. We are in debt to
brave men and women like this who risk their very lives to fight
terrorism and the dark forces.

I asked him if he was a Christian and he said yes that he believed in God prior to going up on the shuttle and now is even more convinced. He
said the most striking thing he remembered was how fragile the thin
blue line of our earth’s atmosphere looked from outer space. It is srikingly beautiful and is unique to our little planet.

It is difficult to understand why there are those who want to destroy our beautiful little blue marble and everyone in it, but nonetheless there are those who exist seemingly for just that purpose. Fortunately God has seen fit to put those brave persons in the world to fight their evil every day, even going into outer space to do it. God bless them…


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Matthew 5:9
Blessed are the peacemakers
For they shall be called sons
of God.