Should scientists focus on interstellar travel more than interplanetary?(Lightspeed travel)

I have not heard about those books and may read them in the future. Thanks a lot though. Anyways, back to the topic, you state that "the pace has slowed a bit" I beg to differ. With the massive speed with which the Internet is growing. Smart phones are also quite new. We certainly may not be getting new technology as fast as we were but the technology we do get perhaps have more uses. These are like little helpful stuff for the general population, not for advancing physics to it's ultimate goal. (Theory of everything) You say science as fundamental as radio waves are not being made. Silicon was a huge win for mankind and now after the discovery of Graphene, we have a new super-material. Even though producing this in mass quantities is tough now, at the time of silicon the same problem was there and we fixed it, and graphene might be widespread by 2020. We have tablets, phones which are now mini computers. We have curved t.v's and phones. In reality I think mankind has once again set it's sight to small. Sure we are getting a couple of new stuff, but that is the entire point of the debate; Mankind thinking bigger. Super computers vs computers in a home. Smart phones vs phones. Even gaming consoles are hand held! And to think that these items are more powerful than the "super-computers" NASA had during the Apollo missions? The current "adult" generation has set it's sight on perfecting this technology rather than expanding. While I am totally for getting 5 GBPS Internet speed, visiting the moon being as easy as going to another city? That's much more interesting. Going to another country the equivalent of a drive? Why not? While I do not have any bias against the current adult generation, the previous one with all the geniuses certainly thought bigger. Perhaps this was because of the flawed education system where by hearing was more important than understanding. But, back to the topic. You claim that Terra forming may require more energy. That may be true but the technology related to it may be only a teeny bit less advanced than inter-stellar travel. For Terra forming think of all the things we have to change. Gravity, Atmosphere, maybe even orbit. Our most powerful bomb drawn (Tsar Bomba-100 megatons) does not even have a hope to shift Mars out of it's orbit. Then again, it is gambling as it always is. Mankind betting against time with developing certain technologies. Unfortunately, greed has led to many bad choices. Nuclear bombs (that debate is for another day), small ideas, more warfare out of fear for a country's security (Like U.S.A), generally stuff that will not help mankind. Then comes into play our topic, how it will profit us. You said that we might not reach Mars, I sincerely doubt that. The ISRO put a satellite into Mars for less cost than a movie (Gravity) and whilst that did not have many sensors or give new data, the real objective lay in sending a cheap, fast satellite. Mankind definitely will send a man to Mars by latest 2050. Then again, modern ideas currently take time to develop. We no longer have EUREKA! Moments but rather like a tube light. We take time to turn on, but when we do we are the brightest. Once again you bring the problem of fuels. This is a problem that certainly can be fixed! However due to rising Earth's health issues we are focusing on energy conservative products or also non-polluting fuels. I however agree that first we can fix some of our own problems before exploring out, but we do not need to be perfect. The moment we are we have lost our humanity. Lets fix pollution. Let us learn to take care of a planet before destroying others. The new movie interstellar brought a new idea into my head, mankind's survival. Mankind probably will survive the demise of the sun (5 billion years) or be extinct by then, but what if a calamity occurs before that? A meteoroid appearing for Earth. Mankind's first thought? Avoiding it all together. Find a way to stop or destroy it. However I do remember seeing a Nat Geo episode on this that how will we survive a neutron star headed for Earth? What if the calamity seems impossible to stop? Interplanetary travel won't help us. So? We head for interstellar travel. You said that a man can't survive such a long journey, but what about a family? What about a whole generation living in only space? And then comes the selection of these families, which all described in the show there- (watch it, its great!) And also what if we do push Earth to it's limits and ultimately destroy it? We must focus on Interstellar travel. Now let us consider that none of these "death events" occur. You have (what I believe) wrongly stated the fact that interstellar travel will not occur for thousands of years. Sure, maybe my estimate of this century may be unlikely but by say 2500 I would have liked a man to at least have been outside the solar system, maybe even in Alpha Centauri. By then we would certainly have reached new heights of interplanetary travel. Saying that whilst researching on one and not finding information on another will definitely be a huge lie, but then again, we can take our time and do wonders or we can do many small, minor wonders and perhaps a big one in a millennia. This is the ultimate "deep meaning"(My English teacher obsesses with this, please excuse me) that should mankind bring new cards to the table or just polish the existing ones? Think of the fact that the only fault with interstellar travel in reality is time, and if mankind can save Earth, mankind has what feels like infinite time. So, spend it on interstellar or interplanetary? Right now, interplanetary hands down as it is a much more basic topic and we can focus on it and also focus on saving Earth. Once Earth is saved, we have 2 choices (metaphorically speaking)- Wait for a couple of years and get a spin wheel with a 90% chance of getting it big or getting a prize wheel that are very low probability of hitting big and are simply basic. I personally would play the first choice as the other 10% is still bigger than the latter choice. Now this is purely an opinion based question and not very factual. I would like to thank you for giving me a real taste of debate. This being my first debate I have really enjoyed it and look forward to more debates. Thank you all the voter/viewers for voicing your opinion (please do so). I do intend to post a debate every other week and I don't really care who takes it as long as the arguments are as logical as my opponent here. Thank you and have a nice life. (Think big)