Hey, thanks for working in public transportation! Actually, for the first time in my life I don't go everywhere using public transportation - because moved to Amsterdam and bought a bicycle. But of course without extensive public transportation my bike follies wouldn't work.

We mostly agree - I think the quibble is probability vs possibility.

I'm on the third floor. There's a lamppost about five meters below me. I'm an older male.

It's possible that if I jumped out the window, I could catch that lamppost. I'm lucky, I'm agile, ah, I'm 59.

I'll bet I could do it one time in 1000, easy. OK, maybe less, but it's possible.

But I would not describe myself of capable of making that jump.

Proposed FTL drives require many solar masses to accomplish and in practice you'd be ripped to atoms by tidal forces. Maybe some magic technology will appear.

But science is pretty mature. Moving to quantum mechanics perhaps the last great revolution, but it changed nothing practical for 99% of engineers (unless you work with tunneling diodes or quantum computers). Relativity, ditto.

Expecting a revolution in physics leading to many orders of magnitude better engineering is... like me catching the lamppost.

I think that the combination of "incredibly expensive" and "no conceivable payoff even in your grandchildren's grandchildren's time" and "now we are resource-poor because the Age of Waste consumed almost everything" will forever bar man from the stars, even if we do survive.