Pope and astronauts ponder humanity’s place in the universe

Pope Francis was in a philosophic mood yesterday as he asked US, Russia and Italian astronauts to share their thoughts about “man’s place in the universe” during a video call linking the Vatican to the International Space Station.

American astronaut Mark Vande Hei told the Pope that seeing Earth from space made them all “realise how fragile we are”, reports Sky News, while Italian Paolo Nespoli said that man’s place in the universe was a “complex question”.

“Our aim here is to spread knowledge,” Nespoli said, “[but] the more we learn, the more we realise we do not know.”

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The Argentine pontiff was clearly fascinated by the conversation, which took place as he sat at a Vatican desk facing a widescreen television on which the six astronauts could be seen floating together in their blue suits, The Guardian says. He peppered the astronauts with questions, says the Associated Press, in a manner comparable to that of “a curious child”.

The Pope mused: “Astronomy makes us think about the universe’s boundless horizons and prompts questions such as, ‘Where do we come from, where are we going?’”

He also asked the astronauts about their greatest sources of joy. US mission commander Randolph Bresnik said that for him, it was being able “to look outside and see God’s creation maybe a little bit from his perspective”, a world without borders or conflict, the Catholic News Agency reports.

And what did the crew think about Dante’s verse that love is the force that moves the universe, Pope Francis asked, reports ABC News.

Russian Alexandr Misirkin said that he had been reading Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince, and that he had been taken by the young prince’s understanding of love: “Love is the force that gives you strength to give your life for someone else.”

A 30-second delay in the satellite feed gave the astronauts - who also included American Joseph Acaba and Russian Sergej Nikolaevic Rjazanskij - time to consider life’s biggest conundrums.

Nespoli thanked Francis for his philosophical questions during the 20-minute video call, saying: “You took us away from the daily mechanics of things and made us think about things that are bigger than us.”

Francis is the second Roman Catholic leader to have placed a call to the heavens. Benedict XVI spoke to astronauts on the space station in 2011.