Grace in orbit

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, March 18th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: We have a problem, Houston.

Captain Barry Butch Wilmore is a retired NASA astronaut and Navy test pilot. He's spent a considerable amount of time in space, a total of 464 days. He's done three space flights, he's spent 32 hours spacewalking. And most recently, he and fellow astronaut Suni Williams grabbed sensational, international headlines for their time aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft.

They arrived at the International Space Station June 6th, 2024 and arrived home a year ago, March 18th, 2025.

MAST: Captain Wilmore retired from NASA a few months later after celebrating 25 years with the agency, and he's written a book about his unexpectedly long stay on the ISS. That book is called Stuck in Space. It’s available today, and Captain Wilmore joins us now to talk about it.

Captain, welcome.

WILMORE: Great to be with you, Lindsay. Thank you for having me.

MAST: Thanks for being here. In the book, you mentioned that cassette tapes of John MacArthur's ministry, "Grace to You," became your church for a period of time. You said you've probably listened to more than a thousand of his sermons, often while deployed.

What is it about his teachings that really grabs you, and how did those messages minister to you specifically while you were in space?

WILMORE: I think you just said it: teaching. Growing up, I heard sermons preached, which there's nothing wrong with sermons. I had never heard the Bible taught. The first time I heard the Bible taught was a cassette tape that turned out to be John MacArthur. Never heard of the gentleman, and it really rocked my world. I thought I was listening to a seminary class.

And then over more tapes, I got more tapes from a friend of mine. I continued to listen thinking it was a seminary class, and then when I found out it was preaching from the pulpit, I was like, oh my goodness, I did not even know this existed. 

So teaching, you just said it. Preaching is great, message from the word, from the pulpit, is vital to our Christian growth. But the teaching that I started to hear there and what I've heard since has just really changed things for me.

MAST: I love this. You wrote that the headline “Astronauts assimilate” wouldn't get any clicks, so the media used the word stranded. So, first of all, explain the difference between being stranded and the actual truth of the matter. And then perhaps why you chose the word stuck for your own book.

WILMORE: Yeah, well, stuck, stranded, there are definitions, there are many definitions for both of those words, many items come to mind. And we were definitely—in some of those definitions—stuck and stranded. We were in a position where we didn't plan to be there and couldn't leave for any number of reasons. 

But ultimately, the Lord put us there. It was Him that put us there. He placed us in the situation. He's sovereign, He's in control, and I know that. So I can't say from that standpoint it was stuck. The name of the book is that because I don't pick the name of the book, I've learned the publisher picks the name. And of course, that's the way the general public knows this situation is being stuck. And so that's why that is the title. 

And in the book, there's a section called "stuck in space," and I go into those details of saying why that's the title, but truly, truly as believers, we know there's no situation where we’re stuck. Even though we feel stuck; some people feel stuck in a job, feel stuck in marriages, and other situations. But the Lord allows us to get in there and it's, again, working out His plan and His purposes for His glory and our good. And hopefully that—for those that will believe—and that we will learn and grow from those situations we find ourselves in.

MAST: You know, very, very, very few humans have had the experience of looking down on Earth from space. So I want to ask, what was your “what is man that you are mindful of him” moment when you were up there? God has an even broader perspective, but how did it change yours?

WILMORE: It didn't change… I didn't need to go to space to learn anything about my Lord, His Word is all sufficient. However, you say what was my, that moment. There wasn't a moment, there was moments all the time. Every time you look out and you see the aurora, you know how it's protecting the earth from the nasty radiation that's out in the cosmos, as the magnetic waves orient that around our planet. And this is just the visible part at the poles where the high energy electrons enter the atmosphere.

And you see that and you understand that as the Lord's protection, how He designed this planet to be inhabited, as it says in Isaiah 45: 18. And so that, and just sights in general, the colors, the beauty, the variety. It's not moment, it's moments every single day as you look and gaze from that vantage point, which you know, few people in the history of mankind have had the opportunity to view that with their own eyes.

And it certainly makes you grateful, obviously, to our Savior that He gave me this desire in my heart that I was able to view the planet from that vantage point. And just, you know, maybe a little bit it just gives you that appreciation all the more that I wouldn't have had otherwise.

MAST: Last question: I'd like you to talk for a second about grit. That's loosely defined: a combination of passion and perseverance. And from the beginning of your story, you seem to have had a lot of it. I'm curious what aspects of your life you think most helped develop your sense of it. And when have you been most grateful that it was something that you developed from a young age?

WILMORE: Grit is something that I don't think it's something you wake up with, it's something that is learned over time. And that's something about, it's in this book, you can see if you read the book, Stuck in Space, it goes through some of those details where I learned the grittiness of life, to knuckle down and go forward. And be that, you know, that work-like-a-mule mentality because I learned it many times the hard way.

And just real quick, since I talked about the book, I mean, the reason I wrote the book was for my daughters. My wife and I had our daughters, we were in our forties, we lived a life before they were born. So I wrote it with a purpose for them. I'd started actually before the Starliner, wrote some chapters, but I continued it. So that's the reason I wrote it.

The reason I published it is because I think it tells this message of grit. We all have to deal with life. Life is tough in many instances, and I think it will be an encouragement for people in the now to deal with life that we have to deal with. But beyond that, we also must be aware of the eternal everlasting aspects of our existence.

And that's where Jesus Christ our Lord comes in. He comes in every day dealing with life. That grit, as you're talking about, is something that's a blessing from Him. But that also points us to the eternal aspect.

So dealing with life now, an encouragement there in the perspective of dealing with life now, as well as focusing on our eternal existence. And that only comes successfully, eternal hope through Jesus Christ our Lord. And the wrath He incurred from the Father on the cross as He paid the price for our sins.

So that's why I wrote the book. I wrote it for my daughters. I published it for the glory of God.

MAST: Well, the book is called Stuck in Space, it is out now. And Captain Wilmore, thank you so much for your time.

WILMORE: Thank you. Pleasure being with you, Lindsay. Thank you.

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