We do lack the technological capacity.

Travelling to another star would require a fully self-contained spaceship with energy, life support, food, medical facilities, even production facilities able to function for centuries or millenia. We simply don't know how to do that.

▲

stymaar 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, we don't know how to do that, but we don't know how to build hundreds of aircraft carriers per year right now either, yes the US has done the later in WW2 and would probably be able to do it again should it be needed in an existential war.

With a sustained nationwide effort comparable to WW2 we could most likely send a spaceship out if the solar system in ten years or so. But why would anyone do that?

▲

mytailorisrich 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Building hundreds of aircraft carriers a year is an issue of scale, so of money and allocation of resources (assuming we have the manpower). But what I mentioned is more profoundly that we simply don't know how to even build one. It's knowledge and technology which are lacking.

Typical these things fall into one, two, many. Can you build one, two, many? These are very different propositions.

One means you know understand how to do it, mostly.

Two means you can repeat it, so you do understand it, it wasn't a fluke.

Many is scaling the process.

	▲	stymaar 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Scaling is a technology of its own (and it's often the hardest part).