And those kooks who talk about warp drives are not doing real science. Everybody knows that the only purpose of a warp drive is to get the Enterprise past the next commercial.
Plus, one cannot ignore the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation, which everybody positing interstellar travel conveniently does ignore. This is basic physics 101, stuff that is not likely to be overturned ever. In Star Trek it was a plot device that everybody basically ignored, just like the transporter ignored the continuity problem -- well, everybody but McCoy.
But as far as anybody who understands basic science, none of this is real, and none of it is likely ever to become real. It is what could be called, a Star Trek wet dream.
However, it does make for a great background for a fictional narrative. That's why Star Trek is so damned compelling and long lived. But it is what it is. Fiction.
I suspect that the reason we have not been visited by space aliens is that interstellar travel is so fucking difficult that virtually nobody is doing it. Also, there's the issue that we live in a really, really huge galaxy and even small interstellar distances are fucking ginormous.
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