WOW this was incredible!!! I just absolutely loved so much about this. There were so many unique ideas in here about space exploration that I've never heard of before. The tone was a flawless blend of hopeful and mournful, bittersweetly reflective and awe-inspiring. In one of those delightful "reading serendipity" coincidences, I just read "Paradises Lost" by Ursula K LeGuin's Birthday of the World a couple of weeks ago, and it was a genuine delight to compare and contrast these stories while I read this one. I'm grateful to the *multiple* friends who told me I had to read this one, because it was so, so good.