[ck2]

That concept for tic-tac sized probes reaching 10% of the speed of light via laser power transfer seems remotely plausible in a few hundreds years but personally I don't think humans are making it off this planet. We are running out of runway with overpopulation, overheating, overpollution, toxic everything and cutthroat politics will only allow space investment for weapons when there's no money for food and health.

Even if there was a near-future miracle invention for cheap plentiful power, it would be turned into a weapon of war far before space use. Beyond the power requirement, accelerating mass near the speed of light is beyond our comprehension, we can't even deal with radiation in space forget hitting dust that fast.