This from NASA last month about the nearest inhabitable planet...."The new found object, dubbed Kepler-186f, circles a red dwarf star 500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. A light-year is almost 6 trillion miles.". So even if we were able to travel near light speed it would take at least 20 human generations to get there as a colony. Space travel to a new world is fantasy. Meeting new species is way past fantasy.
On the other hand, finding civilized life in other worlds via a SETI type operation is distinct possibility. But again, any message we receive would have been at least 500+ years at receipt.
Yep.... reality is a real “buzz killer” sometimes.