In 1968 the world watched as Earth rose over the moonscape, televised from the orbiting Apollo 8 mission capsule. Radioing back to Houston on Christmas Eve, astronauts recited the first ten verses from the book of Genesis. In fact, many of the astronauts found space flight to be a religious experience. To Touch the Face of God is the first book-length historical study of the relationship between religion and the U.S. space program.

Introduction: "The blasphemy of going up" -- "A power greater than any of us" : religion and secularity in the formation of the American space program -- "Signals of transcendence" : the rise and fall of space-age theology -- "Into the other world" : anticipations of spaceflight as religious experience -- "Perhaps a meaning to us" : the Apollo missions as religious experience -- "Evil triumphs when good men do nothing" : religious Americans and NASA in the autumn of the space age -- Epilogue.