Yahoo – AFP,
26 October 2017
Pope Francis chatted with six astronauts at the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday, kicking off the rare interview with a philosophical question on "man's place in the universe".
Pope Francis chats with six astronauts during live linkup with the International Space Station |
Pope Francis chatted with six astronauts at the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday, kicking off the rare interview with a philosophical question on "man's place in the universe".
Italian
astronaut Paolo Nespoli, 60, admitted that despite the 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 at a small desk inside the tiny city state, facing a
wide-screen television on which the astronauts from America, Russia and Italy
could be seen floating together in their blue suits.
"Good
afternoon... or good evening. I imagine time passes differently at the space
station, right?" the pope quipped.
"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," Nespoli admitted.
"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," he said, as
Francis nodded and smiled.
But the
pope had not finished: what, he wanted to know, was their opinion of love as 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?
The crew
took it in turns to get their philosophical caps on, and not even a technical
hitch which temporarily interrupted the interview, or the lack of a Russian
translator, could throw the space travellers off course.
No comments:
Post a Comment