When I was a boy, my dad gave me a hood ornament from an old car. It was shaped like a rocket ship. Pretending to be an astronaut, I guided it through the universe of my backyard. I told my dad I wanted to travel to the stars. He explained to me about light years and the enormous vastness of outer space. Still, it all seemed so possible. Years later, I discovered as you get older the distance to the stars gets farther and farther away, but when you are a kid, you can still almost touch them.