At our current level of technology nothing that we know exists travels faster of than the speed of light. For those that don't know the speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second in a vacuum or about 186,282.4 miles per second. Now we specify a vacuum because the speed of light is not constant it can be altered both my diffusion through material or gravity. Still no matter how you slice it, light is fast. At the moment a value of c, or the speed of light in a vacuum, acts as a cosmic speed limit sign.
Now going faster than the speed of light isn't the immediate next step to travel, its actually several steps down the list as far as speed. Right now we don't have the technology to come any where close to 1/10 the speed of light, which just obtaining that would make space travel viable in our solar system. But looking beyond Sol colonization, it would still take decades at 1/10 the speed of light to reach the nearest stars. So to get there we need to talk FTL, Faster-than-Light.
Now to jump from my topic a bit, let us talk about colonizing Sol. It's not that far off at this point it is more cost then anything else holding us off. Colonization in our own system can be done locally on Luna (aka the Moon) or in a bit further direct Mars and Ceres. Now there are a lot of arguments about colonizing the moon. Temperature being a big one as difference between sunlight and nighttime is a few hundred degrees. But we can counter that with a couple different things, colonizing near the poles and/or colonizing underground. Same is true for Mars. We can colonize at least in part underground. More people argue against Mars with time it takes to get there. Such arguments usually include exaggerated facts about solar radiation, food shortage, and mental instability. I would say give humans a bit of credit, we can counter radiation. Food, even if we can't preserve it, we can grow it. And humans have survived much longer journey's at sea. There are obstacles, but I believe even with the technology we have now, not to mention what we will have in 10 years, we can counter these issues. Ceres, however, is the most logical choice for colonization. It is much smaller then even our moon, but it is mostly water, frozen water. Also transport to Ceres would be easier to Mars because of Ceres' orbital path. Not to mention it would open up the ability to mine the asteroid belt for materials.
In any case, the main issue is speed. Speed will increase if we have a valid reason (say a colony) to increase the speed. But let's step back from the real and focus on the SciFi of this. There are many different methods in science fiction for traveling faster than light. I am going to talk about a few of the most popular ones.
Warp Drive
Warp technology is most famous because of Star Trek. Miguel Alcubierre was the one to actually come up with a valid of way of how it could work. The idea here is based Einstein's theories of space time. In that many people (misinterpret) believe that if one travels faster then the speed of light forward and then back they will actually travel back in time. This is not what Einstein meant, but Warp technology in theory would use some of the actual science behind that belief to make warp possible. See warp technology does not actually cause the vessel or ship to travel faster then the speed of light. Instead the ship creates a warp bubble, this bubble compresses space time in front of the ship and expands it behind it. Essentially is rides a wave of space time that is traveling faster than light. So while the vessel itself (and anything else inside the warp bubble) is traveling at normal speeds, the bubble pushes them forward at incredible velocities that would cause it to arrive somewhere faster than normal light would. Not a bad idea, but as Alcubierre himself calculated it would take an insane amount of energy and create such exotic amount of radiation that it would be more practical to try other methods of FTL travel first.
Hyperspace, subspace, slip-space, and all space in between
The next idea exists in a myriad of different specs. Star Wars and StarGate used hyper drives to move faster than light. Andromeda used slip-space. Still other series use subspace or some exotic other space. In all the cases the concept remains the same. Create some way of accessing another dimension or layer of space where the laws of physics don't as strongly apply. In examples of subspace, the spacial area is actually smaller than in normal space, so travel from point A to point B takes less time and energy. In Hyperspace the concept tends to lend itself to gravitational pockets casting shadows leading to hyper-spatial currents that allow a vessel to reach much higher speeds than in normal space. Still slip-space is a dimension of intertwining space time that relies on a biological lifeforms concepts of intuition to navigate. While different serials may present these slightly different, access another dimension, or even remove part of our own, could reduce travel time between stellar bodies over long distances. Some suggest it will take time to travel through these dimensions, while other series like BattleStar Galactica or Asimov's Empire series seem to suggest it would be near instantaneous. Like being drunk "What's so bad about that?" "Ask a glass of water." The issue here is that there is no proof that such dimension exist, or if they do that they act in such a way that would allow us to use them like this. It's strongly theorized that they do, but no one has ever been able to prove it. Furthermore accessing these dimension is another challenge in and of itself after discovering them. So these remain plausible until proven otherwise.
Wormholes
Wormholes are our best bet. Although they have never been discovered naturally, nor do we know if we can create them artificially... or show they would really act. Current science seems to lend itself to the fact that the universe has its own way of allowing for faster than light travel. By the creation of two interconnecting point through folded space. The paper analogy is often used, where the scietist says you are on this side of the paper and you need to get to the other side, what's the quickest way, he then folds the paper until the two sides are touching. Unfortunately if such things do occur they would create lots of exotic matter, and as such shows as StarGate and FarScape have pointed out, might not even be able to be used by biological life without destroying it. In FarScape entering a wormhole without calculating for phase variation meant that your body ripped out of phase into a bloody mess. To compensate a phase generator was installed on the ship. In StarGate they never discussed what would happen if you stepped into a raw wormhole, but to compensate you were de-molecularized and sent through. In StarGate this also meant that you could only travel in one direction through a wormhole (from start to finish) entering a wormhole backwards would lead to certain death. Other SciFi series and scientists have speculated on the probability that wormholes could also connect different time periods. Entering on one end could mean traveling back in time and creating a paradox, or worse traveling to the future ... in which case you could have taken just as much time traveling across space normally. Although many scientists think wormholes exist or can exist, none know how to make, find, or utilize one. So unless by some freak accident we do discover one, this isn't a valid form of FTL either.
What else is their?
Well there are no shortage of bad ideas, but think on this. Nothing that we know of has gone faster than light. So how do we know nothing can? Einstein stated that anytime you increase velocity (add velocity to an existing velocity) there is a small amount of diminishing returns. As speeds we can currently access this amount is negligible. However, as we approach the speed of light the amount that is diminished is increased until the addition is zero. This would be the maximum obtainable velocity, and it would be just under the speed of light (like 99,999999999999999999999999% the speed of light). But honestly we haven't even come close to that to know if he is right. Further more if light can be altered by gravity, it may also be able to be altered by other forces such as Electro-magnetic, Strong Nuclear, or Weak Nuclear forces. Maybe even some force we haven't discovered yet. Also we don't know that light is the actual boundary, some scientists believe light speed is just a symptom of spatial boundary. Once again we don't really know.
I would like to open the conspiracy nut bag. The Philadelphia Experiment has always been one of my favorites. The idea here was actually for a cloak. Create enough radiation around an object, in this case the USS Eldridge in Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, the radiation would bend light and render the ship invisible to any radars and to the naked eye. The supposed results of this experiment by the US government in 1943 were that the ship disappeared and was spotted off of several harbors around the world with in a few minutes. When it returned to shipyard crew men were fused into bulk heads and many of them had a strange type of radiation sickness.
How about this for an explanation, the ship created an FTL drive out of the cloak, it was bound to earth gravitation and EM fields, where it bounced around before returning to where it started. The fusing of crew members to bulkheads is similar to rapid acceleration. Now to be honest noone knows if this story is true. US government obviously denies it, but imagine if it were. FTL technology currently exists. Just isn't safe, however if we study it we could get there.
Where we stand.
Currently, there is not proof that FTL could exist. We are limited to that awesome speed of 299,792,458 meters per second. That is if we could reach it, even a tenth of the way would be huge. But in a single galaxy that spans 100,000 light years, and is 1,000 light years thick; a tenth would mean it would take us over a 1,000,000 years to travel from end to end. Not to mention accessing the rest of the universe would take even longer. This is unacceptable. We must colonize into space. It is the only way to preserve our species, our home planets, our need to understand the greater mystery of our universe. Although I don't believe in it, I regard this as our destiny; or as close to destiny as can possibly be defined. It must happen, or we will perish by our own hand. So why wait? Why not start now, the technology will follow. Delaying the inevitable is foolish and dangerous. If financial cost stand in our way, then let us overcome it. We must for our children.
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