（二）我突然意识到宇宙是源自一个伟大的设计 作者：马默如 莫里
我参与了一个为期八天的太空飞行，我的任务是在太空实验室做一个实验，我要连续四个小时在不受任何干扰的条件下观察猴子肾脏细胞在微重力（几乎没重力 － 译者）的状态下是如何分裂、生长和发育的。这个试验的目的是要研究活着的有机物在地球有重力的环境下繁衍了四十亿年以后，能否在几乎没有重力的太空生长。为了解答这个“深奥”的问题，这个实验的要求是要我数小时目不转睛地观察在显微镜下的猴子肾脏细胞。细胞在太空的生长速度跟在地上的一样慢！
两个小时过去了，到了第三个小时时，我的右眼已经快睁不开了，但我还是顽强地把眼睛贴在显微镜的弧形镜孔上。后来我的身体开始不舒服了，而太空上的微重力环境或者更加剧了我的不适。到了第四个小时的时候，身体的不适便慢慢发展到头部的抽痛。尽管如此，我的目光还是继续顺着显微镜筒细心地观察着。又过了二十分钟，我的头痛得越来越厉害，我知道我需要休息一下了，我抬起头来，“拉开”了一下我的眼光，接着紧紧地闭上眼，又尽量瞪大，把眼睫毛抬得高得不能再高。
我那时还是在太空舱里悬浮着，双腿往下，穿过我的工作台下的回形架，我抬高双手伸了一个懒腰，真的是好惬意啊！就在我把手收回的时候，我的左手碰到了太空船的窗孔。于是，我转过头来，瞥了一下窗外，看到地球正在窗下转动。
躺在我下边的是一个个浅棕色的非洲草原，一片片黄色的沙漠和沙漠里布满岩石的路面，还有一个又一个郁郁葱葱的热带雨林 ―― 好一个多姿多彩、无边无际的非洲。我还看到了蓝色的尼罗河与白色的尼罗河在喀土穆（苏丹首都－ 译者）相遇的美景。在我细心地欣赏地球在我的眼皮底下慢慢转动时，我突然觉得地球表面的图案和线条好像似曾相识，我通过几分钟前看过的景象认出了她的特性和形状 ―― 我指的不是我刚才通过太空船的窗孔看到的景色，而是通过显微镜的镜片看到的活细胞。我一下子惊呆了！我看到的地球表面的构造和我一直观察着的活细胞明显地非常相似，他们之间有异乎寻常而又无可争辩的共同之处 ―― 宏观结构像是微观结构的重复 ―― 规模庞大的地球就像是一个放大了的活细胞。
在那一刹那，我突然意识到宇宙是源自一个伟大的设计！
1992年的那一次飞行已经过去好几年了，后来2000年的另外一次专门测绘地球的太空飞行得到的结果只不过是确认了我在那一次飞行得到的感觉 ―― 看似广阔无垠的宇宙其实是一个精心设计的产物。（以下是原文）
Suddenly the Universe had a grand design Mamoru Mohri
I was on an eight-day spacelab flight, conducting an experiment that obliged me to monitor – for up to four hours at a time without interruption – the behavior of monkey kidney cells as they divided, grew, and developed in microgravity. The research had to do with whether living organisms, after a four-billion-year history in the one-g environment of Earth, could thrive in the near absence of gravity. Profound as that question is, the experiment demanded hours of monotonous observation. Cells grow as slowly in space as they do on earth!
I was into my third hour of observation. Right eye crinkled, but tenaciously attached to the curvature of the microscope eyepiece. I felt a growing physical discomfort, which may have been aggravated by the microgravity environment. By the four hour, it had evolved into a throbbing headache. Still I continue to peer carefully down the drawtube of the microscope. Another 20 minutes passed, and as my headache became angrier, I knew I needed a break, I raised my head and “stretched” my eyes, closing them tightly and then opening them wide, eyebrows raised as high as possible.
Still floating, but with feet anchored through loops beneath my workstation, I raised my arms over my head and stretched. How good that felt! Then, in the process of lowering my arms, I bumped my left hand against the shuttle’s porthole window. As I did, I turned my head to the left, glanced out the porthole, and saw the Earth spinning below.
Below me lay the khaki-colored grasslands of Africa, rocky desert pavements, lush tropical forest – the endless variety that is Africa. I watched as the Blue Nile and the White Nile met at Khartoum. As I continued to study the Earth turning slowly beneath me, the patterns and contours of its surface appeared suddenly familiar. I recognized features and shapes I had seen minutes before – not through the space shuttle window, but through the lens of a microscope. I was stunned! The configuration of Earth below looked remarkably like the living cells I had been examining. There was an extraordinary and indisputable similarity – a repetition of the microscopic in the macroscopic – molecular nature mimicking itself on a gargantuan scale.
Suddenly for me, the Universe had a grand design. Years have passed since that flight of 1992. But a later shuttle flight dedicated to mapping Earth in 2000 has merely confirmed my feeling about a continuum in the design of a seemingly limitless universe. （P182）
