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"[Science fiction] is the only kind of writing that allows you to look at the world we live in and change one piece at a time."
- Frederik Pohl

Spacefaring  
  A nation or people who explore and trade in space.  

By analogy to "seafaring".

The Finstera are not a spacefaring people; there was no possibility that the bogie would be identified as theirs.
Technovelgy from Citizen of the Galaxy, by Robert Heinlein.
Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1957
Additional resources -

I think the phrase itself was used previously, as in Ballad of Venus Nell (1942) by NS Bono:

None but the most daring do any space-faring In those lethal, whirlagig niches,
But spacemen all claim that the Bog is aflame With infinite, fabulous riches.

But Heinlein really nails the usage, for my money.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Citizen of the Galaxy
  More Ideas and Technology by Robert Heinlein
  Tech news articles related to Citizen of the Galaxy
  Tech news articles related to works by Robert Heinlein

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