[seanflyon]

> basic hard laws such as the speed of light, the laws of thermodynamics, etc. say NO

This is not true. For travel within the solar system the speed of light is no more than a nuisance delaying communication. The laws of thermodynamics don't stop space travel. No one is saying "we always find a way" to do the impossible. We are saying "we always find a way" to do that thing that we already know how to do and have demonstrated lots of times, only this time we need to make it cheaper.

[ghostunit]

a) Travel within the solar system? where do you want to go live, Mercury, Venus? Mars is almost as worthless too, its gravity is 1/3 Earth's. Can't live there for long.

b) We just need to make it cheaper? how, exactly, are you going to get up there except by burning obscene quantities of solid (fossil) fuel, as we do now?

That's where the thermodynamics things comes in play: you have to pay the energy cost, there's no elegant "oh, we're just going to fold space" or some such bs. And fossil fuels are finite by definition, need I remind you.

It's not "we just need to make it cheaper". It's coming up with new breakthroughs in physics that no one can assure even exist.

[seanflyon]

a) Mars.Your notion that humans cannot survive for long in 1/3 gravity is interesting. While it has not been proven that we can live long and healthy lives in 1/3 G, many very intelligent and informed people believe we can. Do you have a particular reason to believe we cannot?

b) You have to pay the energy cost but that is not the hard part. Fossil fuels are finite, but we don't need to use fossil fuels and even if we did setting up a civilization on mars would take a tiny portion of earth's fossil fuels. We are not going to run out of hydrogen as long as we have the energy to split water and plenty of energy hits the earth in the form of sunlight every day, not to mention fission or fusion.

So no, the laws of thermodynamics are not the problem. We "just" need to make it cheaper.