Pope calls astronauts for a chat

‘WHERE DO WE COME FROM, WHERE ARE WE GOING?’ ‘Thinness of the planet’s atmosphere shows how fragile life is on earth.’

Pope Francis chatted with six astronauts at the International Space Station (ISS) yesterday, kicking off the rare interview with a philosophical question on “man’s place in the universe”.

Italian Paolo Nespoli, 60, admitted that despite having a bird’s-eye view of earth he, too, remained “perplexed”, while American Mark Vande Hei said seeing the planet from space made them “realise how fragile we are”.

The Argentine pontiff sat facing a wide-screen TV on which the astronauts from America, Russia and Italy could be seen floating together in blue suits. “Astronomy makes us think about the universe’s boundless horizons and prompts questions such as where do we come from, where are we going?” the pope mused.

A 30-second delay in the satellite feed gave Nespoli, Vande Hei, Americans Randolph Bresnik and Joseph Acaba, and Russians Sergej Nikolaevic Rjazanskij and Alexandr Misirkin time to weigh up life’s biggest questions.

“Our aim here is to spread knowledge, [but] the more we learn, the more we realise we do not know,” said Nespoli.

“I would like people like you, theologians, philosophers, poets, writers, to come to space to explore what it means to be a human in space.”

US mission commander Bresnik said the visible thinness of the planet’s atmosphere showed how fragile life was on earth.

But the pope wanted to know if their opinion of love was that it is a force that moves the universe? What was their source of joy up in the space station and how did a life without gravity change their view of the world?

“I get the most joy by looking outside every day and seeing God’s creation, maybe a little bit from his perspective,” Bresnik said.

Bresnik, 50, made his fifth ca- reer excursion outside the space station this month to carry out repairs to the ISS’s robotic arm with Nasa colleague Acaba, 50, the first person of Puerto Rican heritage to become an astronaut.

Francis is not the only Catholic leader to have put in a call to the star-covered heavens. The first pope to get on the line to space was Benedict XVI in 2011, who rang the ISS. – AFP

Picture: Reuters REACHING OUT. Pope Francis talks to crew members of the International Space Station, ISS Expedition 53, during an audio-video connection at the Vatican yesterday.