what breakthroughs will mankind have to accomplish to reach astronomical objects?

Answer 1

In a way mankind is reaching astronomical objects now. Light data from these objects keeps falling on us continually. We keep making better telescopes(visual, infra-red, ultra-violet, radio, X-ray, microwave, etc) to read all this data more accurately. We now can use multiple telescopes that read astronomical data as well as a telescope that had a mirror the size of the distance between the telescopes! Theoretically, we could make a virtual telescope the size of our Solar System to read light data to the nth degree! Also, gravity from entire galaxies is being slowly used just like telescope lenses to bend & read light data from behind those galaxies better than we can read it with just our man made telescopes. Some telescopes can look right thru opaque dust & molecular clouds to read data from inside those clouds! Some telescopes look thru the sun to show us what is happening on the other side of the sun. We can tell what is going on near the end of the universe in one direction that would take a spaceship 15billion years to get to at the speed of light. Then we can leave the spaceship behind by swinging the telescope around to read the other end of the universe. Altho we can't cast our bodies to the stars, its almost like being able to cast our eyes to the stars! This is so wonderful as to be a miracle!! Listen to your astronomers. They are telling you stuff now, that you thought only miracle spaceships & astronauts launched to the stars would be able to tell you! & much more is to come.

Answer 2

Power - The amount of energy required to move galatic distances is enormous... really quite beyond our ability unless we want to send near lifeless rocks through space to distance stars.

We need a vastly greater understanding of dimensional physics... such as the study of wormholes, sub-space/hyperspace, etc otherwise a pure reliance on travelling the absolute distances in 4 dimensions will make the task of getting to other star systems impossible to achieve.

Inter-solar system will probably be quite possible or probable within the next couple of hundred years or so providing some disaster or alien invasion doesn't exterminate/set humanity back.

Answer 3

None. The moon is an astronomical object and we reached it over 35 years ago.

Answer 4

Some way of propelling spacecraft other than relying on Newton's third law. Reaction engines require too much mass or energy to be good for really long trips.