- Video
- 40 minutes
- Level: all audiences
Charles F. Bolden Jr. is a former head of NASA, a retired US Marine Corps Major General, and a former astronaut who flew on four Space Shuttle missions. He is also a man of faith, active in the Episcopal Church. Br. Guy Consolmagno, S.J. is Director of the Vatican Observatory.
This dialogue between these two men took place as part of the 30th anniversary celebration for the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope, or VATT, in Tucson, Arizona in September 2023. They discuss space, relationships, and faith. For example, Bolden on his first trip to space:
When I looked out the window, the beauty and the magnificence of the planet was just breathtaking, and there were no lines or anything, and I literally cried. But immediately I said, “you know, all the stuff I have been taught all my life about differences in people, and about differences in countries, we created between this ear and that ear [gesturing to his head]. And I realized that, no, that’s not the way God intended it to be. This is the way that God created this planet.
