The story behind stories

Well it's time to start this thing off. Last month, one of the best space news websites that I have had the privilege of writing for, now.space, went under. News of its demise was not entirely unexpected—it had always been a small side project for everyone involved—but came as a blow to me personally for two reasons: 1) It was the outlet I wrote most regularly for and 2) their amazing editor, Heather D'Angelo, let me write basically whatever I wanted. I got to publish essays on some of my most cherished thoughts and ideas about space, resulting in some of my favorite stories I've written so far as a journalist. With the site gone, those articles have now been scrubbed from the internet. But luckily, I retain copyright over them, and so have been meaning to re-publish them somewhere else.

Today I uploaded the first to Medium. The title of the piece—What We Talk About When We Talk About Space—was the germ that led to the rest of it. My original idea was to gather a bunch of quotes about space and what it means to us and discuss them. But as I arranged the quotations, something slightly different came out. I had to wrestle with what space means to me and why I have rejected the simplistic notions I so often see floating around about it. Space has become a religion to many and I am not interested in signing up for any new religions. At the same time, it is something I find beautiful and worthwhile to study. The piece ends on the same sappy note I condemn others for using, and yet they are my true emotions. Even in re-reading them, I sometimes get choked up. Enjoy:

What We Talk About When We Talk About Space