Space is the place

Did you ever feel like you really know a place from years of reading about it and looking at pictures and hearing stories, while at the same time there may some other location where you have actually physically been that's left less of an impression? Two places like that for me are Berlin vs. Madrid. Also outer space and Akron. So the shuttle program is winding down, and I'm thinking maybe the best way to the stars is via inorganic extensions of ourselves, as opposed to figuring out ways to get actual meat onto the surface of Mars, for instance.