ABSTRACT
Human spaceflight has only been a possibility for the last half century or so, since the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union first sent unoccupied rockets, then animals, then, finally, human beings up past the earth’s atmosphere and into outer space. Before technology reached the point of making this possible, however, people dreamed about what existed above and beyond our planet. Gods and goddesses were thought to occupy mountaintops and clouds, sacred objects descended like lightning bolts from above, and the religious of many societies expected an afterlife inside the cosmic vault of heavenly blue. Within Western culture, space is often regarded with a mixture of scientific curiosity and religious interest. Scientists may describe the character of the universe and its stars and planets, rendering them natural and common, but the sky and its various orbs and spheres retain their hold on the human imagination as a place of supernatural wonder and mystery. Traveling into outer space, then, is a way of traveling into sacred space.
