Worm holes. Worm hole drive is the only way imo. Imagine a 10 mile jump 1,000 times a second at zero actual velocity. That’s solar exploitation speed. With higher energies the worm holes/jumps can be farther distances. It just requires a large energy supply. The worm hole drive itself requires something else, beyond contemporary physics.
“The worm hole drive itself requires something else, beyond contemporary physics.”
Yeah, that’s a pretty big issue. It might make a feasible mode of travel, but before we can see if it’s feasible, we have to figure out if it is even possible.
Personally, I doubt we will ever be able to travel through a wormhole, either a natural one, or one we generate, and survive the trip. I believe we’d have to endure some pretty immense forces, akin to what you’d experience inside a black hole, and what could protect us from that?
Perhaps a combination of the warp and wormhole concepts could work. If you could create a space-time warp bubble around the ship, that is about the only thing I can think of that might protect you while you traverse the wormhole.