[photon]

Of course there's two other considerations to that...

First is it's entirely possible that the laws of physics ultimately prevent any species from leaving their solar system. The amount of energy required to reach even the closest stars are more than the entire planet produces or even could produce with its natural resources, and that's not even asking how we'd store that energy, or considering that it would take longer to get there than our species has been sentient. I'm an optimist and I think we'll reach the stars eventually, but it's by no means a given at this point.

The other consideration is should we even go? Fermi's paradox raises an important question. One solution to the paradox is they are out there, and that they're like the predators here that camouflage themselves, waiting for unsuspecting prey to happen by.