A young boy struggles to find beauty in the world around him. From pollution, to landfills, to gray skies and alleyways covered in graffiti, the Earth is ugly in the eyes of this boy. He wants to escape from Earth and travel to the far reaches of the beautiful universe. He calculates the escape velocity to leave Earth and imagines a journey into the heavens. It is not until his imagination comes back to Earth (when he sees the globe on his desk) that he realizes beauty was around him all along. Scientific background: Escape velocity is the minimum speed an object must travel to escape a gravitating body. To escape Earth, an object must travel at about 25,053.686 MPH.