It is 50 years ago since Apollo 11 put the first man on the moon on 20 July 1969. Before its closure in 1972, the Apollo programme achieved five more successful landings, one of which – Apollo 15 in 1971 – gave astronaut Colonel James Irwin the chance to survey the glories of God’s creation from a lunar vantage point.

From childhood, Irwin had dreamed of going to the moon. In preparation for becoming an astronaut, he studied geology, astronomy, and spacecraft design, as well as lunar geology.

Though a sceptic during his educational years, after extensive research, Irwin became a convinced creationist.

Called ‘exploration at its greatest’, the Apollo 15 mission targeted the moon’s Hadley Apennine region, an area noted for its high mountains and deep valleys. During the mission Irwin spent more time on the moon than astronauts in earlier missions – over 18 hours on the moon’s surface.

Later, linking his experiences on the moon to his Christian faith, Irwin said: “I am now more than an earthling, because I have walked on the moon. Being on the moon had a profound spiritual impact upon my life.

“Before I entered space with the Apollo 15 mission in July of 1971, I was…[a] silent Christian, but I feel the Lord sent me to the moon so I could return to the earth and share his Son, Jesus Christ.”

On his retirement from NASA in 1972, Irwin founded the High Flight Foundation, which focused on showing that science supports creation, not atheistic evolution. For almost 20 years until his death in 1991, Irwin consistently proclaimed that Jesus walking on the earth was far more significant than man walking on the moon.

As both a scientist and an astronaut he could say with authority that it is: “important to recognise the Creator of this great planet and the universe in which it exists. After all, he is the one who created the laws of science that make space travel possible.”

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