Hey, a quick reminder.

We would love to hear from you about your best summer travel stories.

Give us a call and tell us about the places you went, the people that you have met, the

things that you learned while traveling.

You can record a voice memo and email it to us at helloatatlasubscura.com or call us and

leave a message at 315-992-7902.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

The life of a spacecraft begins with a goodbye.

Shortly after midnight, Moscow time, the big Soviet rocket lifted in orbit the big...

It catches just a glimpse of Earth before blasting into the sky.

And then it's off, hauling scientific aspirations, political weight, and other bits and crumbs

of humanity with it, sometimes humans themselves.

These spacecraft go places we could never go on our own.

They survive conditions that would kill us immediately, but even they can't escape

the earthly circle of life.

There are years in orbit, parts of them stop working, or maybe the humans below decide

it's time for them to come back down.

So they make their final orbits, and then they return.

Ripping through the Earth's atmosphere, some plunging deep into the ocean, where they're

granted eternal rest.

I'm Abby Peralt, and this is Atlas Obscura.

A daily celebration of this strange, incredible, and wondrous places in and a little bit above

...