A Question About Spacefaring Species

My question is what you think life would be like for an interstellar species. Do I have it right? They would be nomads, wouldn't they? They wouldn't even really have a home world to speak of.

For instance, mankind most likely will not wait to develop FTL travel before sending people off into the stars. Hell, we have probably already sent people out there. So, going into it, they know it's a one way trip, right?

ETA: Seems to me this would be pretty much how it plays out.

1. Governments keep secrets for good reasons. One of which, eventually, is interstellar spaceflight.

2. Governments send people out in interstellar spacecraft just to see if it's possible.

3. Those people are gone forever. They are now timelords essentially. They can't go home because everyone's dead and gone.

4. When they stop by some planet with people like us on it, they are most likely just stocking up on supplies and whatnot, but teaching people how to farm and built cities while they're here.

5. They tell them they'll be back. But the thing is, from an Earthly perspective that return trip may not come for like 20,000 years or some shite while the people who were looking for rare Earth metals may have only been gone for like a year.

No I haven't.

These things are not impossible. They're just a little outside our current grasp. They are already working on a warp propulsion system (NASA affiliated peeps). And there's no telling what all they have we don't know about. Explaining it away as "you're talking crazy amounts of energy" just doesn't cut it.

Besides, I wasn't trying to debate exotic propulsion systems. It was more of a question about what would happen to the people who did set off for the stars. It's a hypothetical.

And it makes me wonder further if something like a "galactic trade federation" is possible or not. When you consider the time wonkiness stuff, unless everyone were traveling faster than light and are legit timelords types, the likelihood of being able to coordinate trade or anything of the sort between planets becomes practically nil. Because the distances between planets that would be capable of high civilization would render it impractical.

So instead, the space faring peoples will be fundamentally changed. Those people would only ever seek exploration for its own sake. That and seek higher levels of spirituality. They would be completely unencumbered.

The other question that goes along with this is, would you guys go?

If someone gave you an opportunity to get into a really fast airplane and travel to another world, would you go considering everyone you currently know will be long gone when you return?

I would. I would sign up without a second thought.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn they already have bases on places suitable in our solar system.

I've read Vonnegut.

We dont need to leave the galaxy, or even the solar system. We need to figure out how to terraform Mars.

Civilizations will develop faster than light travel which will make the 20k year concern irrelevant

You may want to ask the travel agent how they intend to stop this light speed traveling excursion vehicle when you get to your destination, before you sign up.