Human Spaceflight: The Fantastically Routine

Decades ago, we huddled around televisions and watched as people walked on the moon. We tracked every movement of spaceships through the dark abyss above us. When a space shuttle took off, we paid attention.

But space is now just another place that humans explore. Space has become normal. Around the earth at any given moment a handful of people from around the globe float weightless - doing experiments in a space station or repairing wayward satellites.

That doesn't mean we NEED to think of spaceflight as just routine. It truly is something to wonder at - we as a species have taken our first small steps beyond our home. It's a miracle we've accomplished through ingenuity and tenacity.

This vignette celebrates a fantastically routine thing people do every day: stepping into outer space and floating above us all. At the turn of the crank, the astronaut bobs weightless above the earth, drifting toward a satellite to perform some repairs.