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What arrogance? The same arrogance that said traveling beyond the sound barrier was biologically impossible? Or that horseless carriages were either impossible or would alter your physical health at speed?

That is to say, the jump between moving THROUGH space to the technology of moving AROUND it is vastly greater than the jump between a slow horse and a fast car. FTL may well be possible in a hundred years or a thousand...where the science behind it is devined and understood in a million little breakthroughs made by men and women who devote their lives to it. However, backward engineering a completely alien technology without an understanding that "you absolutely cannot touch the red glowing glass cone if the air drops below 41 degrees, while the blue pulsing thing only causes gamma ray bursts if the black thing is spinning, unless the green light is on or else you vaporize everything in a two parsec radius" is a pretty chancy R&D project for the hairless apes who have no operations manual, when the manual is a black cube designed to interface ONLY directly with the mind of the operator. (Who is a three-toed reptillian panda who died in the crash at Roswell.)

Mornin'!

"That is to say, the jump between moving THROUGH space to the technology of moving AROUND it is vastly greater than the jump between a slow horse and a fast car."

Moving from a fast P-51 Mustang to the Bell X-1 was considered a huge leap, though there was only a scant few bits of velocity between the Mustang's dive speed and breaking the sound barrier. It's all a manner of increments (as you point out in the quote below) and discovering the limitations you thought you had are not real.

"FTL may well be possible in a hundred years or a thousand...where the science behind it is devined and understood in a million little breakthroughs made by men and women who devote their lives to it."

Which is different entirely from saying it's "arrogant" to think that humans can comprehend FTL travel theory. Especially under the consideration that there are good and sober scientists working on FTL right now.

Supposedly at least a couple of the FTL speed things is not near as complicated as we might have construed it. I don't recall what leads me to that bit of data from the recess of my mental stores . . . but it's an impression I've had somehow from my fast number of pages in the UFO literature.

At least the gravitywave/bending space THING SOUNDS relatively simple in principle. Making it happen may or may not be that complicated.

I've always thought it was going to be very fascinating when God

ROLLS BACK THE HEAVENS LIKE A SCROLL--whatever that means.