Humanity

It once seemed impossible. Of course, everything once seemed impossible. Now it is impossibility itself that seems just that, impossible. Yet today, mankind has achieved another great standard. Captain Jon Floyd became the first member of the human race to man a shuttle out of the milky way galaxy.

At that moment, as the capsule drifted softly in space, many thoughts occupied the young captain. One thought, however, pressed to the very forefront of his mind. A thought he had never before considered.

It was the swift and sudden realization that this great feat of human achievement was one he would experience alone.

While these great advancements in technology would allow for the Captain to return back to the Earth, a prospect never before thought likely, and he would doubtlessly share his adventure with all the Earth, he was struck at just how human he felt in this moment.

At the height of human achievement, to the edge of the known galaxy, and no one to share the memory with -- a man, even when removed entirely from everything that makes him human, is still just a man. And as the starlight twinkled all about him, the stellar view stretching out infinite lengths in every direction, Captain Floyd cried. The first tears any human has ever shed out of the womb of the Earth and certainly not the last.