"I've argued with physicists about [FTL travel], I've argued with best friends about it. I just have to believe it. It's my only faith-based initiative." Clark's comment prompted laughter and applause from the gathering.

LOL...I could start to like this guy. Bless him, he wants to believe. Isn't that where it all starts?"

Hmm. Well I believe FTL travel is possible- but it wouldn't believe it's something practical nor even particularly desirable at this time. The non-existance of FTL is not a barrier to opening up the Space frontier or even the traveling to distant star systems.
For example, a more practical "belief" would be that we could "get" energy at say 1/100th the current price. If we could have a situation where energy was 1/100th the current cost to produce then we would be much closer to traveling to stars. But even getting to this point, is pretty far along. An more immediate goal might be to get to the point of having energy cost in Space equal to energy cost on the Earth surface.
That would be a significant tipping point, which relative what effort has already been squadered by NASA, would be quite easy.