Humankind is never going to be a star-faring species using rockets, which may take us to the Moon and Mars. Interstellar distances are too great and human lives are too short.
For an interstellar civilization to exist we needed faster-than-lightspeed (FTL) propulsion, or what science fiction has called “warp” drives. These imagined drives many scientific skeptics have labeled theoretically impossible.
It turns out there are more optimistic scientists working on warp drives, believing them possible. Here is an article describing some of that work. It won’t happen in my lifetime but perhaps in our grandchildren’s lifetimes? Hat tip to RealClearScience for the link.
Elon, are you listening? Seed money could help make the dream a reality.
Perhaps once we humans develop warp drives, other-than-human intelligences will send us an ambassador, as we will have gained the coin of admission to citizenship of the galaxy. I hypothesize that until we do so they will continue to observe and keep hands (or equivalent) off.
