> **Abstract:**
> This paper describes an incentive trap of growth that shows that civilisations may delay interstellar exploration as long as voyagers have the reasonable expectation that whenever they set out growth will continue to progress and find quicker means of travel, overtaking them to reach and colonise the destination before they do. This paper analyses the voyagers' wait calculation, using the example of a trip to Barnard's Star, and finds a surprising minimum to time to destination at a given rate of growth that affects the expansion of all civilisations. Using simple equation…