The dawn of space faring era has already begun but it is predictable in many ways.
It is one given to consideration to cost, economy, and scale. Much as any exploration of the world in the past were considered by commission and anything else making lucrative the possibility of an endeavor, exploration likely wouldn't have taken place for itself alone. That is, without any number of purpose, and gain for economy in store.
Applications for low and high Earth orbit are commonplace. A manned moon landing, on the other hand, would be quite limited in duration and scope for all the extensive preparations made, scientific purpose were attached, of course, to these missions. If given to political and social ramifications, all set to notion of 'just because'. On the other hand, such missions have not been repeated. If it weren't merely to the cost exorbitance, the possibility of failure also popping a big sword, anything practical to come of future missions should be as ill fated as lunar colonies and giant spoke and hub (gravity simulating) lunar space wheels. Energy expense for planetary terrestrial ascent has and will continue to be a likely daunting challenge well into the future. It isn't just that Earth's gravity happens to be likely on the size scale of planets modest, or even its atmosphere representing another part of this challenge. Classical mechanics about biology always place constraints on accelerated forces involved. The classical chemical rocket expends momentum change with enough ease. Imagine the momentary energy needed to in one burst. For instance, if having devised a slingshot to hurtle something into space, formidable air friction threatening any hurtled vessel since it isn't the sort of energy that is just mach 2 or 3 but in the double digit range (that is red hot energy for air friction), and thus the problem of launching things into space a merely conservative path problem. Air friction is certainly part of this problem, and as much as imagining escape velocity having taking limits to infinity in such problem might entail all the necessary energy to do what is required to get a vessel away from any planet, and that even where gravity is sensed considerably weaker above...it is always necessary to expend energy to ensure that such vessel (via centripetal acceleration) isn't also pulled back to Earth. Fortunately, this expense in a rarefied environment means that air friction isn't so much the problem, and that such fuel also applies much more in return relative to the same expense at a much lower altitude. The cosmic dance of the moon about the Earth, is 2,300 miles per hour while it is 240,000 miles away from Earth...that velocity is necessary, otherwise, the moon and the Earth would fall into one another, and certainly another great cosmic melancholia would beset its inhabitants. Thus the other part of the problem in sending thing up is ensuring that they stay up there, especially when sending things away to infinity is highly unlikely. A space shot, while having been proposed at times in the past, rightly has stayed theoretical in most cases, or only in application to the projectile for weapons purpose...where a melting projectile isn't given as much consideration relative to whether it can at least reach its intended target...thus no need for heavier considerations of things like heat shield and so forth. Movie's like Interstellar, hint at the mathematical and energy realities of evacuation for such planetary apocalyptic scenarios. That is, to say, the energy to do so, at present, goes beyond a scale that our world economy could handle. Amazingly enough we may not be so much up for the scale of things involved in the math, and when the mother ship and all life boats have been launched into the heavens via the screen, we are as likely to accept such possibility.
The cost per kg of sending things into low earth orbit has dropped considerably in price tag, on the other hand, and this makes more remarkable the feat of cost, economy, and scale of space faring in the future. I would argue far more important than one time symbolic purpose that could offer the same residential purpose of any hosting Olympic city. That is, what is left behind, however, isn't as likely decay where it has stood but an obvious time warp given to abandon, and in that presence what a civilization had achieved, in view of the alien archaeologist should be only more obvious. Clearly that dreams and aspirations weren't given to optics alone, but proved robust and commonplace.
Fantasies of explorers past dabbled into quite romanticized fictions, in their accounts, even as the cost, purpose and more mundane details would surface for accountants. Captivating the social energy of audiences, financial speculations, and hoodwinks in store would prove as necessary ingredients. While others like Pizarro would make fortune, seizing amazing stores of gold, having the technology to do so, forcing upon hearts and minds through shock and awe. Otherwise, inexplicably, how should so many numbers otherwise fall despite major technological advantages that his band of conquistadors would possess? Nonetheless, even given the supposed impetus to religious conversions, economy were a major driving force to such exploration and the seizure of land. Wealth and enrichment, to the tune of a gamble, but not without preparations, not without reconnaissance. Nothing was happenstance by Pizarro's mission to conqueror Peru. That is given by the application of having done, precisely this sort of thing in the past, and having the necessary implements in place achieving these goals.
What conqueror wanders into a wasteland, otherwise, that has little to offer and considers this worthy? It is one fictionalized in paper, and at least, despite any number of lost vessels for any measure of achievement. Despite losses, social capital could be had for any commissioned journey, and when ever resources could be seized, and nothing of established administration and legal right should exist for indigenous peoples, seizure could prove most profitable relative to any king attempting to purchase land otherwise holding such resources, already having been measured and likely in some way, having suffered from then modern technological depletion in a way that would prove distinct relative the new world.
The cosmos offers potentially something similar here. Though as always, there is any age old problem, considering transport and logistics. Fortunately, what could be seized should likely only require the forced religious conversion of alien microbes at best, at least for this solar system. Having to deal with gravity and energy requirements and so forth, humans in such age, provide lesser roles in all likelihood. Low quality of life indicators for more permanent residence are just as likely given the limitation of scale for habitation elsewhere. If resident outposts in Antarctica are prime examples, one could hardly describe permanent residence, or anything close to metropolis, and that township at best are geographically peripheral and more likely provide year round habitability. Spectacular failure of self sustaining and completely resource independent bubble cities have proved that the idea of colonies elsewhere could well be omen of what were to come. If there isn't something potentially exponentially foreboding in the cost of things.
I imagined the colonists of the future having arrived in successive waves, as in the ships that brought them there at all such expense. That trip could be imagined, like the old world colonist, or something like fur trappers set about to make their fortune and having left another life and children behind when fortunes were made. Though in reality, while we can think of the past, and imagine it in parallel, there is all the exponential gape of one world relative another. The cosmic sea isn't merely a living sea in the same sense or scale. It is far more vast and empty than that. It is the difference of scale that makes such journey, a more likely one way trip, or at least one that is scaled to small populations when humans are sent elsewhere. Otherwise, the less glamorous thought is that these inhabitants were likely born from cheap transport and petri dishes and never knew the sunrise on Earth. How could one describe the tragedy of lost seeds, otherwise, that never experienced consciousness and whose parents were machines that did their best in care for their children's survival?
