Create an organization like CERN but to investigate how we could travel at the speed of light to open the doors and start to conquer space.
If successful the first thing we would do is to make a new space mining industry. After that the economy is so prosperous that we can afford to continue researching and traveling the same universe as we take resources: natural and economic.
If other civilizations could intercanviiar technologies and from here we will create a new world.
Put all the effort to create these technologies to open up the universe.