How actually far away is space from the surface of our planet?

If you think space is thousands of kilometers away, let's see what the renowned British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle had to say on the subject. 'Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards.' With this striking perspective, he emphasized just how near we live to the alien world of space Actually, there is no clear boundary between Earth's layer of air and empty space, because our atmosphere peters out gradually with height. Nevertheless, scientists take a height of 100 kilometers as a convenient point to say that space begins. One may draw a somewhat specific line of demarcation and state that space begins at the altitude of 32 kilometers  because thereafter you need a rocket to go further up. In the bustle of their everyday life, many people travel more than 32 kilo meters to get to work each day, but we don't have freedom to move upwards as easily as we can travel horizontally. The gravity holds us to the Earth's surface.