“Here comes another one!” little Jim cried to his dad, as they stood atop the small airport terminal not far from their house. Father and son spent occasional afternoons watching the planes take off and land, much to Jim’s delight.
His sharp ears would pick up a plane’s droning buzz before his eyes could make out the small dot in the sky. He hardly breathed as the plane slowly descended, then lightly touched down on the landing field.
The wonder never grew old. And Jim wished more than anything to be in the cockpit, participating in the miracle of flight, not just observing.
That dream stayed with Jim all through school. Upon graduation he attended the U.S. Naval Academy, and then entered the Air Force. His plan was to become a commercial pilot after his term of service.
(The P-51 Mustang)
And then Jim chanced to fly a P-51, the fastest jet of the time and capable of flying almost vertically. After that experience, commercial piloting seemed much too tame.
Jim went back to school to earn his master’s degree in aeronautical and instrumentation engineering and graduated in 1957.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was established the following year and Jim Irwin set his sites on becoming an astronaut. To achieve that goal he needed to become a test pilot.
Jim entered that program in 1960. Once qualified he was assigned to a top-secret mission: testing a plane that flew higher and faster than any previous aircraft.
Three times he applied for the astronaut program; twice he was rejected. Finally in 1966 his acceptance letter arrived. Jim’s first assignment was to direct the testing of a lunar landing module that engineers were designing.
Then came the moment he’d been waiting for. He and fellow astronauts David Scott and Alfred Worden were chosen for the Apollo 15 mission, scheduled to take place the summer of 1971.
Eighteen months of intense training were required to prepare the men for the twelve-day expedition, three of which would be spent on the moon.
The boy who wanted to fly would soar where only a dozen men had traveled before him.
Their mission included collecting rock samples and conducting experiments in an unexplored region of the moon. They would also be the first astronauts to drive a Lunar Rover that allowed investigation of a larger area than that of previous missions.
Jim was the eighth person to walk on the moon—certainly a thrill-of-a-lifetime. But later he would insist, those moments on the moon weren’t exciting because he was there, but because God was there. Jim profoundly sensed his presence.
He’d been a Christian for over twenty years by 1971, but “I was…[a] silent Christian,” he would explain.
On the moon, as Jim looked up at Planet Earth against the black backdrop of the universe, he marveled at its fragile appearance—so delicate that if someone reached out to touch it, the world would surely crumble and fall apart, he said. Jim experienced overwhelming awe for the creation of God and his love for the entire human race—love that sent his Son Jesus earthward to die in their place.
One of Jim’s responsibilities on the mission was to set up the mechanism for lunar experiments. Not all steps proceeded successfully. But instead of inquiring the NASA engineers, Jim prayed, because waiting for a reply from Houston would take too long.
Each time he sensed God telling him what to do, and he felt the supernatural presence of God with him as he worked. That sensation was so strong, Jim felt sure if he turned around, Jesus would be standing right there at his shoulder.
As complicated as the moon landings were, Apollo 15 proceeded without major problems. The three astronauts landed safely in the Pacific Ocean on August 7, even though one parachute (out of three) didn’t deploy.
A little more than two weeks later Irwin, Scott, and Worden were honored by a ticker tape parade in New York City. As Jim waved to the thousands gathered along the street, his heart ached for those who did not know Jesus as a personal Friend, and he felt God wanted him to tell others about his Son.
A year later Jim resigned from NASA and formed the High Flight Foundation to share about Jesus from his experiences as an astronaut, and to encourage archaeological research, confirming the accuracy of the Bible.
Jim even participated in exploration of Mt. Ararat in Turkey, where other adventurers claimed to have seen what looked like ship remains, high up on the slopes. Conjecturers proposed that perhaps Noah’s ark had been found.
(Mount Ararat, nearly 17,000 ft. in elevation)
Jim’s astronaut-status provided opportunities that other exploratory teams had not been able to achieve. Government officials allowed the High Flight Foundation access to sites that had been refused to others. Yet in spite of these privileges, Jim and his crew never found the ancient ark.
For twenty years after his moon-landing adventure, Jim Irwin told others that “Jesus walking on earth was much more important than man walking on the moon, that Jesus was the way to know God and receive eternal life.”*
The day before the twentieth anniversary of his homecoming from the moon, the boy who wanted to fly flew further still. Jim experienced his homecoming in heaven, due to a massive heart attack. He was survived by his wife Mary and their five children.
No doubt, James Benson Irwin heard those beautiful words, “Well done, good and faithful servant (Matthew 25:21)!” Only this time, Jim didn’t just feel Jesus’ presence. This time, Jim was able to see his Savior and Friend face to face.
* https://godreports.com/2100/03/encounter-with-jesus-on-the-moon-left-astronaut-changed/
Sources:
- https://biography.yourdictionary.com/james-benson-irwin
- https://crev.info/scientists/james-irwin/
- https://defendingthechristianfaith.org/others-who-testify-of-faith-in-christ.html
- https://godreports.com/2011/03/encounter-with-jesus-on-the-moon-left-astronaut-changed/
- https://ramsheadpress.com/messiah/ch17.html
- https://www.rocketstem.org/2015/07/07/rovering-across-the-moon-during-apollo-15/
Photo credits: http://www.ebay.com; http://www.commons.wikimedia.org; http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil; http://www.nasa.gov; http://www.jsc.nasa.gov; http://www.wikipedia.org; http://www.picryl.com; http://www.wikimedia.com (3); http://www.canva.com.
