Wild to think it took us 30,000 years to reach the moon from the time the first humans saw it. It's going to be slow progress to leave this planet no matter what kind of tech you think we got.
Regarding travel. Large human travel most likely will be done by the best of the best.
You think they want average/uncareful people onboard those ships? Town idiot clout chasing, does something stupid and sends a vessel full of people drifting in space the rest of their lives. They're not going to risk that. They going to be choosey af if it ever happens.
Additionally, like Terrance Tao said making a breakthrough isn't up to you. If circumstances don't line up you can try your hardest and never find anything significant. Everything needs to fall in place, right time, right place and right observations. Plus with all the complications of money and funding, shyt is stupid right now as people distract real research to get funding on bogus research. Not to mention all the glory hounding and people's egos. That's why I'd love for A.I to get here and make these calculations and connections, but if nothing is there then nothing is there and you best believe they've already been running those simulations already trying to find something.
We really got to focus more on taking care of the planet and people we got, which I'm sure we're trying to do.