 What is particularly strange about humans this world?
But with the Procyon shuttle arriving yesterday, there was no telling what might turn up. For eighty years now, they’d been sending out the little ships that vanished at greater than the speed of light, equipped with every conceivable device to make them return automatically after taking pictures of wherever they arrived. Earth was becoming a backwater world; no real progress had been made in two centuries; the young men were sent out as soon as their first fifty years of education were finished, and the older men were too conservative for really new thinking. Pre-setting a course may take centuries, if we can ever master it. After all, there was nothing to worry about; Earth’s doctors could cure anything.
 People are living for far, far longer than they ever have before.
 They have achieved immortality,  They use telecommunications across planets to stay in contact.  They no longer have the same family values most people do.  People are living for far, far longer than they ever have before.