When astronaut Eugene Cernan stood on the powdery surface of the moon and stared back at home—the beautiful blue orb suspended in the inky blackness above him—the moment overwhelmed him.

“There is too much purpose, too much logic—it was just too beautiful to happen by accident,” he later said of what went through his mind. “There has to be somebody bigger than you and bigger than me. … There has to be a creator of the universe who stands above the religions that we ourselves create to govern our lives.”

This month marks 50 years of man in space. It was on April 12, 1961, that Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin first orbited our planet for 108 glorious minutes.

That achievement inspired a zealous race for space. One orbit became three became many more. Soon President Kennedy was challenging Americans to undertake “the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked,” the trip to our moon.

A generation began looking up at the night sky not only with wonder—but also ambition. It was a new frontier, shimmering with possibilities. It was an enterprise that seemed to awaken mankind, all at once, both to our tremendous inventive capacity and to our humbleness within the vastness of the cosmos.

In 1968, Jim Lovell was aboard the Apollo 8 mission that made man’s first orbit around the moon. He vividly remembers the moment they circled around its dark side and first saw, peeking above the lunar horizon, our jewel of a planet.

He was instantly struck by the stark contrast between the lifeless moon and the glowing, resplendent Earth. “The moon is nothing but shades of gray and darkness,” he said. “But the Earth—you could see the deep blues of the seas, the whites of the clouds, the salmon pink and brown of the land masses.”

“At one point I sighted the Earth with my thumb—and my thumb from that distance fit over the entire planet,” he said. “I realized how insignificant we all are if everything I’d ever known is behind my thumb.”

Something about contemplating and touching the heavens seems to invite such grandiose meditations. “When you see Earth from the moon,” Lovell said, “you realize how fragile it is and just how limited the resources are. We’re all astronauts on this spaceship Earth—about 6 or 7 billion of us—and we have to work and live together.”

That promise of unity seemed to be realized, if only for a moment, on July 21, 1969, when a human being did at last plant foot on the moon. As one astronaut put it, “Instead of saying, ‘Well, you Americans did it’—everywhere they said, ‘We did it—we, the human race.’”

At the time, to a starstruck world, the potential for more hazardous and dangerous and great adventures seemed limitless. Projections of what wonders the coming decades of space exploration would yield were daring and dramatic, liberally seasoned with the fanciful stuff of science fiction.

As it has turned out, our half-century of manned space exploration has been … well—compared to the projections—relatively timid. A handful of men followed Gagarin around Earth’s orbit. Twelve people landed on the moon. Gene Cernan was the last of them, in 1972. Subsequent missions have remained anchored within the space between these two celestial bodies. We have fantasized about a manned trip to Mars, but the distance is too great to be realistically bridged using known technology.

Today, it seems people have all but given up on such exploits—outside the cineplexes, anyway. The space shuttle program—aimed at returning man to the moon and then reaching Mars—has been scrapped. This Friday, the space shuttle Endeavour will lift off for the last time. nasa’s final shuttle flight is scheduled for June, when the Atlantis will be launched.

Dreams of space travel no longer seem practical. It’s as if we’ve grown up, abandoned youthful fancies, and become preoccupied with more pressing matters.

We have left our footprints on the moon, but the rest of the cosmos remains an undiscovered frontier.

And yet—the heavens still beckon.

Will they ever be conquered? Consider an answer from an unlikely source.

Gene Cernan was right. There is too much purpose, too much logic—it is just too beautiful to happen by accident.

God’s Word shows that not only did God create the universe, He has mastery over it (read, for example, Job 38:31-33). He not only made all the stars, He has a name for each one (Psalm 147:4; read also Isaiah 40:26).

And even more, it reveals that, while there is a special reason that the Earth is peerless in its gem-like elegance, God is deeply excited about the universe. In fact, believe it or not, He intends to put it to use.

What use? Here is the answer: “For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:18).

Further, in Isaiah 51:16, God says, “And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens ….”

God intends to “plant the heavens.” When you plant something, that means you are laying down seeds that you expect to grow into a crop. This Hebrew word, nata, is the same word used in Genesis 2:8 to say that God planted a garden in Eden. Noah planted a vineyard in Genesis 9:20. Abraham planted a tree in Genesis 21:33. Isaiah 51:16 tells us that God is going to plant the heavens—the abode of the stars. He is going to seed it with life, expecting that it will grow into a greater harvest in time.

Yes—when God said He “formed it to be inhabited,” He was speaking not only of Earth, but also of the universe! He doesn’t intend for it to sit empty forever. He wants to populate it with life!

How? With whom? These are valid, important questions—with solid answers. Those answers are not myth or religious speculation. In fact, they are directly related to the gospel message brought to this Earth by Jesus Christ two millennia ago.

If you want to see those answers plainly revealed within the pages of your own Bible—if you want to know the true purpose for and meaning of the impressive, infinite universe we inhabit—and to understand how human beings play a most critical role in that future—then look at the literature offered at right.

In Genesis 15 is recorded a remarkable exchange between God and the patriarch Abraham. God brought this man outside and directed his gaze upward. “Look now toward heaven,” He said, “and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them.” Then He said, “So shall thy seed be.” This promise stirred within Abraham an ambition, a vision. He kept his eyes toward heaven the rest of his life (Hebrews 11:8-10).

Man’s half-century of space exploration has provided us only the tiniest taste of the miracles that lie ahead. God wants us yet to look up at the night sky with wonder—and ambition. Our destiny lies in the stars.