This procedure was in full accordance with NASA, an organization where many of the leading members were very explicit about their religious convictions. But not only the engineers believed in the transcendental importance of this project. The dream of creating life out of dead material is deeply rooted in mediaeval alchemy. The legendary Rabbi Low of Prague breathed life into a clay figure, the Golem in the 16th century. Robotics and AI specialist at Carnegie Mellon, Hans Moravec, dreams that the brain can be downloaded into a computer system.
Eternal life is just around the corner.
The most radical attempt to transcend the limitations of the fallen creation is to become the Creator Himself and to free humans from the deficiencies of their existence after the fall from grace. Physical and, ultimately, moral perfection of life itself is the goal of genetic engineers. Noble examines the Human Genome Project which has received, since 1990, massive government and private funding to map the entire gene sequence of a human being. This is not humble science devoted to bringing incremental advancement of the human condition. They have been aimed rather at the loftier goal of transcending such mortal concerns altogether.