" Does it not seem strange to you, began Yarlan Zey, that though the skies are open to us, we have tried to bury ourselves in the Earth? It is the beginning of the sickness whose ending you have seen in your age. Humanity is trying to hide; it is frightened of what lies out there in space, and soon it will have closed all the doors that lead into the Universe. "

― Arthur C. Clarke , The City and the Stars