A great subject ER. I agree that our future is out there in the galaxy but we will probably be in our own system for longer than I like to think.

When we go to the stars, I agree that it will be on ships that do not have phasers and proton torpedos. A weapons locker perhaps but that's about it. This is of course assuming that we are not forewarned of danger out there.

New science is new science and what will be possible in the next couple of hundred years is impossible to predict, but the physical properties of the universe seem to be hard wired enough to make me extremely pessimistic that we will ever overcome the limits of light speed.

More likely in the short run is the possibility of life extention beyond anything we can comprehend today. Humans living for many centuries does not break any laws of physics.

If we can live for a thousand years or more, imagine what it will do to our concept of time. Even in the short life span we have now we perceive time differently as we age. When I was twenty years old a year seemed like a long time. At 69 it is more like a month used to be.

A sub-light speed journey to the stars that takes centuries might be quite logical and bearable to a human with a lifespan of 1000+. If we were functionally imortal, there would be no limits.

Cheap access to space should certainly be a reality in the next century. At that point we can get down to the business of Mars colonies, asteroid colonies, and even man made habitats.

Some of the fiction I have read speculates on projects like Mars terra-forming going to seed after we find ftl, but the resources available and critical to Earth will always keep the old solar system buzzing with activity.

It will be very interesting to see what the future interstellar planet finders turn up. The discovery of an earthlike planet in a nearby system would surely create some momentum for space exploration.