17th April 2026

The return of the Artemis II crew last Friday following their record-breaking flight to and from the Moon was surely a source of satisfaction for many of us. Apart from some minor difficulties with the on-board toilet, the mission seems to have gone rather well. By coincidence, fifty-six years ago today, the world was celebrating another safe return from space, but that happy outcome had been far from certain.

Commander Jim Lovell’s famous words, ‘Houston, we’ve had a problem,’ announced to NASA that the Apollo 13 mission had suffered damage to an oxygen tank, meaning that the planned moon landing wouldn’t take place and that the priority was now to get the three-man crew back to earth. The technical ingenuity of the scientists and engineers on the ground, matched by the skill, courage and fortitude of the three astronauts, eventually turned a near disaster into an against-all the-odds success, the three men safely recovered using the lunar module as an improvised lifeboat.

Nothing short of a miracle, some might have said, and, in truth, many around the world had no doubt been praying for those men to be swiftly re-united with their anxious families. But were such prayers necessary? What part, if any, did they play in that remarkable rescue? Prayer alone surely wouldn’t have saved Lovell and his two companions, but who can tell what difference it might have made to the sum total of human effort, determination and hopefulness underlying the eventual achievement of the goal? The moral for me is that in all our endeavours we give our utmost best, while trusting in the God who always gives us his.

Ken Stewart