head nodding up and down.
But, you see, it’s only the rickety narrow wooden dock that’s closed. All other avenues are wide open. Just need a different ship instead of a rowboat.
Fermi not fermez!
I think our star drives will depend on fusion rather than fission, so instead of Enrico Fermi, I would suggest the names of Philo T. Farnsworth and Robert Bussard.
Bussard, we should note, already tried designing a fusion star drive, but was flummoxed by the engineering of it, as we all have been about fusion anyway.
Farnsworth and Bussard also ran out of time with their investigations and experiments, but at least some tinkerers are still quietly puttering away on the matter. Aneutronic fusion has the potential to be the ultimate cool technology!
I've projected that about a hundred and fifty years from now we'll get it sorted out. "It does not pay a prophet to be too specific." (L. Sprague de Camp)