This book is for anyone enthralled by the romantic dream of a voyage 'to the stars.' From our
current viewpoint in the twenty-first century crewed interstellar travel will be an
exceptionally difficult undertaking. It will require building a spacecraft on a scale never
before attempted at vast cost relying on unproven technologies. Yet somehow through works of
science fiction TV and movies the idea of human interstellar travel being easy or even
inevitable has entered our popular consciousness. In this book Ed Regis critically examines
whether humankind is bound for distant stars or if instead we are bound to our own star for
the indefinite future. How do we overcome the main challenge that even the nearest stars are
unimaginably far away? He explores the proposed technologies and the many practical aspects of
undertaking an interstellar journey finishing with his reflections on whether such a journey
should be planned for.
