[jonahrd]

I don't mean to be nitpicky, but you specified the difference between a theoretical impossibility and an engineering impossibility in your parent comment. I assume the reply is just referring to the fact that technically getting to a star system within the 10s of light-years away is an engineering feat, not a break-the-known-rules-of-the-universe feat. I don't take it that they're actually claiming it's a realistic feat that may be accomplished soon.

[palata]

Sure, I guess I shouldn't have used the word "theoretically". My point was that with our current knowledge and capabilities, it is completely unrealistic to consider it remotely possible to achieve such a thing. We are orders of magnitudes more likely to disappear as a civilization in the short term than to achieve any kind of meaningful space travel.