Tales from the Archive: Joseph Fielding Smith, James Fletcher, and the Moon

It is somewhat well-known that Joseph Fielding Smith did not like the idea of astronauts; scripture, in his view, was clear that humans were limited to this planet, and attempts to get off it, at all, would fail. It even made the Ensign, in 2015.

His first biographers really down-played this idea, chalking it up largely to misunderstanding. ¹The first… is mine, the rest are original to the biography, as are the brackets. I’ve added italics for the quote within a quote.

In recent years [1972], the rumor has circulated around the world that President Smith once prophesied that men would never reach the moon. The falsity of this report is apparent from the fuss raised back in 1962 when he commented on the moon venture. In his journal for May 1 and 2, 1962, he observed, “…. I was interviewed by a reporter. He asked me about the endeavor to place men on the moon. I answered that they might, but evidently if so he might have difficulty to get back again. This was sent out as a dispatch to newspapers all over the U.S. and I am flooded by letters in relation to it, with some editorial criticism. Why such a fuss?. . .
This remark apparently disturbed a great many people. The fact is, however, although I did not say it, man—  mortal man— has no business trying to get on the moon, for earth is a probationary state and in mortality we are expected [to stay on] this earth.” He did not say whether the letter writers were upset because he said that man might get on the moon, or because he said they might have a difficult time getting back. Perhaps there was some criticism from each side.
– Joseph Fielding Smith Jr. and John J. Stewart, The life of Joseph Fielding Smith (Deseret Book, 1972), 323-4

I think the authors were being defensive to the point of misrepresenting history. Smith expressed these views strongly, on several occasions. I have a few second-hand archival sources about this, but here’s a primary one.

In May of 1958, Smith received a letter asking about “travel to the moon aboard the new rocket devices.”  Note that Sputnik was launched in late 1957, and the first man to orbit the earth was Yuri Gagarin in 1961, so this is very early “space age.”

The inquirer, a Sunday school teacher in Lehi, recounted a class discussion.

Several members in the class [stated] that you had talked about this subject in the Lehi tabernacle a few years ago, and that you had said there that it was not the Lord’s desire, that man should leave the confines of this earth in such a manner, and that it was your opinion that the Lord would never permit him to do so.

The writer asked for comment, and Smith replied.

When the Lord placed man on this earth he confined him to it! Remember the Tower of Babel! See Book of Moses chapter 1:35. Evidently, the Lord allows man to do many things, but he has not authorized him to get to the moon or to fly out in space, and when they attempt to do so they will fail. THIS EARTH IS OUR HABITATION IN MORTALITY. It is only fulfilling the prophets when men endeavor to rise to the heavens. They have already attempted to dethrone God, and place in his stead an amoeba at some time in the distant past.

In Smith’s view, the space program and biological evolution were modern equivalents of the Tower of Babel, an attempt to overthrow God. However, human events  changed his mind— at least on the possibility of God allowing it to happen— as pointed out in the Ensign article and the excerpt below.

James Fletcher, a Latter-day Saint with a PhD in Physics, who taught at Harvard and Princeton before heading NASA twice, recalled this in an archival interview.

I use to have some difficulty with Joseph Fielding Smith. He came down to California once and he said, ‘It’s not proper that man should land on the moon and it’s against God’s laws.’ And a lot of us around there had been working in the space program, so we said ‘well, better watch out what we say in Church.’ But later when he became president of the Church I took the Apollo 15  astronauts out and visited President Smith. He was tickled to death. He’d forgotten all about those earlier speeches.

Prophets, of course, are not severed from their own views. What do prophets know, and how?

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