Like a magnet...

I have always been confounded and fascinated by space and space exploration. As a child I would sit on my cool doona cover and read through old musty-smelling second-hard books on space flight and the cosmos, entering a world so amazing and spectacular. I know scores of kids dreamed of being an astronaut, but I liked to think I was different from them. I wanted to be strapped into that hard seat, feel the cords and cables and fabric wrapping my body as a complex life-supporting space suit, see the sparkle of oceans through a riveted port-hole, float around in that small capsule soaring through that magnificent vacuum, and come back to earth having experienced something so unfathomably sublime. It's true, space is fucking awesome.