Is FTL in our Future? (part 1)

I'm always reluctant to talk about this topic, because it's difficult to understand, difficult to explain, and is all still largely theoretical. Plus, once in a while someone knowledgeable on the topic will punch holes in my statements as if I'm claiming to be an expert, which I'm certainly not. All that being said, I think it is an exciting topic: there has been talk that NASA is seriously looking at the possibility of Faster Than Light (FTL) speed travel. FTL has been a standard in most science fiction for decades, but for almost as long, it has been considered exactly that—fiction. Star Trek, Star Wars, and other popular scifi TV series and movies have all relied on the concept of FTL, because without it, space exploration would be rather dull, limiting human-kind to a few planets in our own solar system. The idea of moving far beyond our solar system and even our own galaxy has opened up the imagination to the possibility of alien contact, the discovery of new, habitable worlds, and travel to even the supposed edge of the universe itself. Humankind has always had an inborn desire to explore, and though early explorers such as Magellan had their sights set on the horizon, we’ve set our eyes on a much higher goal--the stars.