Waking Adrift

This ship is called the Nessie 14 because, well, this is the 14th attempt. Twice the ships exploded before reaching orbit. Eight other times, we never heard from or saw the ships and crews again. And three times, the crews turned around, returning to Earth. That didn't matter though, they were ridiculed for abandoning the mission, an expensive mission at that. It had cost the companies hundreds of billions accumulated over decades of past attempts. The astronauts didn't care though. They had been in space for long enough that they now only ramble nonsense, forever changed from how the confinement of time twisted and hollowed their brains.
Your mission isn't one of necessity, but to everybody, especially at the companies, it is a need. The Gilling Telescope, the most advanced of its kind, picked up something from the farthest reaches we have ever found. It didn't just pick up something, it picked up nothing. No stars, no moons, no planets. Nothing. Human kind, after millions of years, has found what we believe to be the edge of space.