Aiming at a moving target

I don't know about you, but when you think about space flight, I think aerodynamics...re-enry angles...shuttles and capsules and space stations. But here's one I hadn't thought of before... How do you pray toward Mecca when Mecca's always on the move?

Chew on that one a second.

You see, Malaysia is about to send their first astronaut to go live on the International Space Station for a few months. The astronaut, like much of the nation, is a practicing Muslim...among whose beliefs require prayer, facing Mecca, five times a day. That can be a problem when you're lapping the Earth.

The country plans to cut the astronaut a little slack....announcing that the direction of prayers be judged as well as possible, and that an astronaut in space during Ramadan can choose to follow the fast according to an Earth clock, or can make up the fast upon their return.

While I find this interesting, it reinforces to me the main conversation last time I went out of town....the idea of religion as a construct of man that allows for the understanding of God. These guidelines of Islam reinforce the solidity of the holy city of Mecca as a stabilizing force in the lives of practitioners living in a tumultuous region. Guidelines never considering the idea man may slip the bond of Earth and travel to the rest of creation. No, I'm not saying that religion is "The Man" keeping people down...just that the idea of a man hurling around Mecca brings into clarity the concept that the church is a creation of mankind designed to maintain a power structure of one form or another. Just as the idea of the Catholic Church, created to maintain the wealth and power and dominance of rich over poor. Or, you know, the way the Earth is fixed and life revolve around it. Right?