The place in the ocean farthest from any land is in the South Pacific, about 2,700 kilometres from the three nearest specks of rock. It is called Point Nemo, after Jules Verne’s captain, whose name is Latin for no one. Often the nearest people to it are the astronauts on the space station, passing about 400 kilometres overhead. And because nobody is down there to be hit, the empty water around it is where space agencies steer things they have finished with: Mir came down there in 2001, and the station is meant to follow it one day. So the people closest to the loneliest spot on Earth are, quite often, the people whose house is going to end up in it.