“Imagine if we could accelerate continuously at 1G (gravity), like we’re comfortable with, on good old terra firma, to the midpoint of our voyage and decelerate continuously at 1G until we arrive at our destination. It would take a day to get to Mars, a week and a half to Pluto, a year to the Oort Cloud, and a few years to the nearest stars.” Carl Sagan.
That’s nowhere near the warp drive speed (faster than light) of Star Trek, however it will be doable some years or decades in the future. Certainly, humans will move around the solar system in reasonable time frames, though travel to the stars won’t be done by humans but rather by our representatives (robotics).
I believe our galaxy will be populated by our robotic representatives in the rather near future. They won’t be bothered by carrying their Earth-like life support with them and decades of travel won’t bother them. They will service and repair themselves in transit and communicate back to Earth in ways we can’t even imagine now.
