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"What did that take, thousands of years of gawking at the moon for generations until we were able to actually make the trip?"

If you're a Singularitarian, they believe that technological progress is more or less exponential. So visiting other solar systems might not be so long off. To use your analogy, it may have taken millennia to put our toe in the surf (reach the Moon), but the first voyage to neighboring islands may come pretty soon.

You seem to speak in riddles. Looking at your moniker, I'm not overly surprised. What I said above, was exactly correct, and a near perfect analogy. Your post made me wince and laugh.

So visiting other solar systems might not be so long off.

Uh, no I never suggested or implied that. You're the author of those words.

I'd be surprised if we made it out much further. We went to the moon a few times. There didn't seem to be much reason to stay, so we haven't been back for over 35 years. Beyond placing satellites for communication, there's no real economic reason for space exploration. We've made a few unmanned trips to Mars. I'm not sure we could even land on most of the planets. The hype about life on Mars is mostly about gaining funding for exploration.

In Apollo 13, they captured the desire of the astronauts to walk on the moon. However, it was a personal desire on the part of the astronauts. We spend billions and come back with a few rocks. The nearest planet is around 4.2 light years away. So far, the fastest man made object, the Helios, has attained speeds of 150,000 mph. At top speed, it could cover 1.3 billion miles per year, but the closest star to us is over 20 trillion miles away. I've tried running the numbers, but they're beyond me. It looks, though, that it would take generations to get to the closest star and more generations to get back, even if we tripled our current top speed. I don't think man has that kind of generational interest.