What does the below have to do with budget cuts for the space program? The answer is at the bottom. But it won't make sense without reading the middle.

Whether or not you are a Bible-believing, religious person, if you are in America, and understand English, there's a good chance that you have heard the Revelation story about Satan's thousand years locked in the abyss, during which time, Jesus will reign on the earth. Many suggest that we are about to enter this thousand-year period. Many others say that we have been in it since the resurrection of Jesus, and are at the end of the "Millennium."

If we are at the end of the thousand years, if (as many of the "Amillennialists" say) Satan is about to be, or already has been, released from the abyss after the thousand years, if the thousand years is a figurative number meaning a long period of time rather than a literal 1000 years, then we may be doomed to never accessing outer space in any substantial way. Why? Here's why.

Even though much of America's great prosperity has come about due to certain forms of wholesale, worldwide corruption, and thieving of other nations, you have to agree that America has been prosperous. What might be the real reason for the prosperity? America is the only nation that was - at least formally - formed for the purpose of freedom of religion. And the greatest religion in America has been that of the Bible. So, it is somewhat as though America represents Christ's reign on earth through His people - a figurative thing, as the Amillennialists believe.

People accessing outer space in a big way, would do two things. 1) It would take people out of the reach of the control-sphere of Satan's mental/spiritual influence, if and when he IS up from the abyss. 2) It might spread his evil beyond the sphere of our planet, and even the solar system in a big way, a way contrary to God's plan to keep the evil of earth on earth until the actual return of Jesus at the time of the end.

So, there you have it. Satan wants to keep us from removing ourselves from his grasp. And God wants us to remain here because He made us for HERE, and not to take our evil off-planet. Besides, there are plenty of Muslims to convert to the freedom of Christianity, and it can be done much easier here than in outer space.

So, neither God nor Satan really want us to leave. Are we stronger than either one of them?