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We think of a ship to take us away. We think of a grand vessel, an Ark a personal yacht, a schooner, a galleon, a canoe, or maybe Earth and the ocean's surface, isn't far enough, the ship more suited to the vacuum, a ship that contains within it a tiny bubble of air the tiniest space in which all of our lives unfold. But it is less than a speck against the void.

Beyond, it's always 2 thin, tin can walls. Is this a vast existence or a claustrophobic one? Is agoraphobia possible in space even likely? One who lives their whole lives without ever seeing a horizon, would surely feel terror upon first view.

Imagine You step now out of your ship, you are your children's children for generations. You have plied the spaces between the stars, the void so impossibly vaster, then the tiny ports rings, spaces, stations, asteroids, teeming with tiny bits of civilization. Is the human mind capable of adapting to such a stark change.

Our experience on earth, it would tend to indicate it could be true. Our history is characterized by impossible voyages. Were they launched in desperation with no hope of relief?

If launched into the unknown only when there was nothing left among the known to lose certainly. But there were also those who launched because we, as such cannot be contained- we must expand explore, go farther, find new lands, new words, new life.

I don't know if that's human spirit or just life or just life like we know it. Look at the puffs of breath, exploding from almost every surface we encounter. There's more activity in the Galaxy than we ever imagined.

And the closer we get, the more we see, the universe is stranger than we ever imagined, and is indeed certainly stranger than we could ever imagine. So, what are the stories yet to tell?

image credits:
By maxime raynal from France - Voie lactée, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42057125

By ESA/Hubble, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=135127803

By ESO/L. Calçada - http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1035a/, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21807462

By Mysticsartdesign - https://pixabay.com/photos/space-station-planet-space-future-2723066/, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=122411561

By NASA/Mark Dowman - http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/exploration/marsexploration/html/s89_51054.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15067065

"Washington D.C.: NASM @ National Mall: 2 of Americas peak performance in space exploration - APOLLO + HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE" by Traveller-Reini is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.