Just what is that sensation like to wake up in the morning, look out the window, and see the swirl of a hurricane beneath you?  Or to look up from your packaged dinner and behold the moon rising over Earth’s surface?  Surpassingly profound and awe-inspiring and humbling—all at once!

 (Click to see a larger picture)

We begin life in the darkness and weightlessness of the womb.  And most of us are drawn to experience the darkness and weightlessness of outer space. 

What would be the emotional experience to have a rocket hurl you and your space compatriots beyond the gravitational pull of earth to space regions beyond.  And what feelings would be evoked to race away from your native planet toward a far more hostile planetary environment like Mars or even Venus? 

Or what would the spiritual sensation be of crossing that point in which you knew you no longer had the fuel to return home?  Might we succeed at building a string of booster space stations from Solar orbit to still greater Solar orbit so as to reach further and further from our own planet? 

Or what would the physical experience be like to enter the gravitational pull of Jupiter, land on the surface, and roll out of the command module onto the floor of the planet?  Weighing more than a thousand pounds, could you even hope of getting back into your craft and could it ever escape the magnetic grip of the giant planet. 

Such are the dangers of pushing into new frontiers.  Yet, something drives our race to push beyond the limitations of the present to new capacities and discoveries in the future.