Shane heaved his suitcase into it's compartment on the shuttle. Sitting quietly amidst the clamour, he chose a seat next to the window. He had flown often, but he had never flown out of the safety of earths gravity well. His favorite part of the flight was always the liftoff and landing, and he had no plans to miss his first time leaving earth.
Taking out a camera and his colored pencils, he waited at the window for liftoff. Attendants walked up and down the aisles, helping students with their luggage, asking if they were comfortable, and singing the stations praise. However, their connection of it's remoteness with peace and solace irritated him. Nevermind that space was almost literally imcomprehendingly vast, and that ships thousands of miles away (at spaces' busiest) wouldn't be able to bother them through the vacuum of space. That they were ignoring the in-station ammenities that would actually provide that stuff, such as open space, pshychologists, or heck, a nice air recycling system, bothered him.
The shuttle began lifting off. He began clicking his camera at second intervals as the ground lifted away. The subtle differences that changed moment to moment to moment took his breath away. Parking lots filled with low cars turned into perfect rectangles filled with colorfull boxes. Details flattened away and took clutter with them. The layout of roads became clear, the flowers of highway interpasses blooming as shiny boxes glided along the track. This he had all seen. But as time wore on, and as the ground grew further away, a feeling in his chest bubbled up and took his breath away. He grinned out of sheer disbelief as the shuttle jsut kept it's arrow staright path to the heavens. Countryside gave way to clouds gave way to states gave way to countries gave way to The Earth. It was that last one that actually made him laugh out loud a little.
He looked at the slowly shrinking marble of earth for a long time, just letting the fact that he was in space sink in.
Eventually, he took out his laptop and uploaded the pictures. Not all of them were star quality, but most of them were still spectacular. He let his pencil rest on his sketchpad in front of it's screen for a while as he let ideas roll around his head, and then he began to draw.