People are superstitious by nature, and when you combine dangerous work with a lack of control over their circumstances, those superstitions become even more powerful. Given the nature of their work, it's unsurprising that spacers who travel the voids between worlds have slews of traditions that they insist be maintained by all onboard their vessels in order to maintain good luck for their voyages between the stars.
Some of these superstitions trace back to the old beliefs and practices of world bound sailors. Others came about only after vessels went to space, and found themselves in an environment even more hostile and unpredictable than the waters of the seas. While the specific superstitions will vary from world to world, ship to ship, and even from one spacer to another, these are some of the more dominant superstitions one is likely to run across if they spend any real amount of time trekking across the blackness beyond the sky.
- from the publisher's blurb