Is a galactic civilisation just a dream? Tomorrow, the Boeing Starliner will blast off to the International Space Station. But not everyone thinks humanity's future is in the stars.

This is not science fiction but the dream of some of the world's wealthiest people, as well as the scientists working on the edge of space exploration.

Tomorrow, Boeing will launch its Starliner spacecraft on a test flight to the International Space StationA joint project between the US, Russia, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency.. If the uncrewed mission is a success, it will begin to taxi astronauts into orbit later this year. The Starliner can be used up to ten times, making space travel cheaper and easier.

A new space race is on. Last year, SpaceXFounded in 2002 by South African entrepreneur Elon Musk, SpaceX's mission is to reduce the cost of space transportation to make possible the colonisation of Mars. became the first private company to take astronauts to the space station. Elon Musk has an ambitious goal to send a crewed mission to Mars by 2026. And Russia and China plan to complete a moon base in the next 15 years.

This is our "undeniable destiny", according to science writer Colin Burgess. Humans must colonise the cosmos and form a galactic civilisation. But where did this idea come from?

Since ancient times, people have imagined space travel. The ancient Greek Lucian wrote of a space adventure and a war between the kings of the moon and the sun.

But these ideas were dangerous. In 1584, the Italian friar Giordano Bruno said there was an "infinity of worlds", each with its own people and god. He was executed for heresy, but a universe full of alien life was accepted as fact until the late 19th Century.

Two technologies changed the way people thought about space. Bigger telescopesDevices which makes things look nearer than they are. revealed a vast and uninhabited universe. Powerful rockets offered humans a way to get there. The rocket inventor Robert Goddard wrote: "new civilisation could begin where the old ended."

Out of this world

In Russia, this idea became a new religion called cosmism followed by a state policy to beat the United States in a race to the moon. The Soviet Union put the first satellite and dog into orbit in 1957 and the first human in 1961. But in 1969, the US declared victory when Neil Armstong stepped onto the lunar surface.

For some, that was just the beginning. In 2012, the Voyager probe left our solar system, carrying a letter from former US president Jimmy Carter to an "awesome universe" from "a small distant world" that dreams of one day joining "a community of galactic civilisations".

But fulfilling that dream will not be easy. At its current speed, Voyager will reach the nearest star in 80,000 years. Breakthrough Starshot aims to use lasers to shorten the trip to a few decades. But passengers will still have to commit to a lifetime between stars.

Living your whole life in a capsule may sound unappealing. But in the 1980s, physicist Gerard O'Neill imagined enormous rotating cylinders, home to forested towns, lakes and fields. One of his students was Jeff BezosThe founder of Amazon and one of the world's richest people. , who now plans to build enough O'Neill cylinders for one trillion people.

So, is a galactic civilisation just a dream?

Some say yes, space is a vanity project for the super-rich and a distraction for governments. We should focus on solving climate change, disease and poverty here on Earth. When faced with an imperfect world, it is easy to dream of escaping and starting again on another planet. But even if we overcome all the obstacles, space will never feel like home and we will only take our problems with us.

Others say no, we must become a galactic species. Life on Earth could be wiped out by climate change or an asteroid strike. Humanity has a much better chance of survival if we spread ourselves out across the galaxy. But it is not only about survival. We are driven by a curiosity to explore the unknown and turn our dreams into reality. Space invites us to think and dream on an interstellar scale.