About learning I'd travel through space

Dublin (Ireland), Earth, Sol System

So, about how I could make it to Earth as a kid...

Father's parents are wealthy enough to pay for passage to Earth, but they always asked that we pay for the transportation.  Of course, transportation to Earth usually costs a lifetime of average income - double that if you want suspension.  

I was 8 the first time my mother got the invitation from Earth.  I didn't understand why she was so happy.  Of course, I'd heard everything about Earth: endless seas, dense forests, cities within cities within cities... but I'd never considered the possibility of actually going.  Earth citizenship was to me nothing but an abstract concept that could one day get me out of New Lhasa.  A real trip to Earth?  I remember casually telling my friends, waving a disinterested hand at the notion, but quite honestly I was terrorized.

Jania Moreau was also insanely nervous.  She was my mother, and like she kindly reminded me over and over, it was her job to worry about me.  But she'd also insist on how fear could be a great guide.  How fear was the clearest sign of a step we needed to take in order to better ourselves.  She said fear was a biological reaction to a dangerous situation, but that modern technology had pretty much rid us of actually dangerous situations.  That left fear as a response to mental challenges, and those were the most important ones to overcome.

Well, Jania certainly didn't have space travel in mind when she went on her lecturing bouts about fear.  Technology having rid us of dangerous situations?  Tell that to the 4% space farers whose warp drive led them totally out of bounds, leaving them stranded for months, sometimes years in deep space (that is - if they ever did find energy to make their way back).  Tell that to the 1 out of 4 travelers in suspension who'd end up with radiation poisoning and in need of artificial organ transplant upon arrival.  Tell that to the dozen ships in our sector alone who got blown to pieces by Ks.

No, she was right to be nervous.  But she also felt she couldn't deny her only son that wondrous privilege: Earth.