Provided we don't wipe ourselves out, there's no technical reason why we can't go interstellar. It's just way harder and more energy intensive than most people imagine, so I doubt it's happening any time in the next few hundred years.

But we already understand the physics and feasibility of "slow" (single-digit fractions of c) interstellar propulsion systems. Nuclear pulse propulsion and fission fragment rockets require no new physics or exotic engineering leaps and could propel a probe to the stars, if one was so inclined. Fusion rockets would do a bit better, although we'd have to crack the fusion problem first. These sorts of things are well out of today's technology, but it's not unforeseeable in a few centuries. You could likewise imagine a generation ship a few centuries after that powered by similar technology.

The prerequisite for interstellar exploration is a substantial exploitation of our solar system's resources: terraform Mars, strip mine the asteroid belt, build giant space habitats like O'Neill cylinders. But if we ever get to that point - and I think it's reasonable to think we will, given enough time - an interstellar mission becomes the logical next step.

Will we ever get to the point where traveling between the stars is commonplace? No, I doubt it. But we may get to the point where once-in-a-century colonization missions are possible, and if that starts, there's no limit to humanity colonizing the Milky Way given a few million years.

If I understand correctly, you're just basing that statement on climate change or war destroying us before we can do any better than Voyager, right? Because if we don't assume the destruction of humanity or the complete removal of our ability to make things leave Earth, then just based on "finite past vs. infinite future," it seems incredibly unlikely that we'd never be able to beat an extremely old project operating far beyond its designed scope.

This is all based on the assumption that we are not able to build spacecrafts with faster speeds.

There was simply no incentive to do so yet. But one day we will build faster spacecrafts and then we are going to overtake it quite quickly.

Based on what? That we will never be able to make probes travelling faster than ~17km/s (relative to the Sun) that will eventually reach and overtake Voyager 1?

I certainly wouldn't bet against technological progress, and I say that as a complete doomer.

I was always wondering if there’s some sort of limitation in science. Just like in some games you can’t fly according to the rules (science), so there’s just no way to do that without cheating. What if e.g. in 5k years we will reach the limit? Basically like after playing a couple of months in minecraft the only thing you can do is to expand

No, that sounds wrong. I am sure future objects will go further.

> In fact realistically speaking it is the far more likeliest possibility.

What insight do you have into this issue that would suggest this is true?

1. Get to AGI 2. Optimise for energy efficiency 3. Shoot billions of AGIs into space a year

... Be responsible for the very longterm torture of billions of intelligent lifeforms who are forced to drift through boring space for 1000s of years.

I think it literally every day… and with literally every day the odds of our surpassing ourselves on this one gets, again very literally, further away.