Can We Hitch a Ride Through Space on Hypervelocity Stars?

Science fiction has been an incubator for Utopian visions of space travel and extrasolar colonization for decades. Many of these methods of FTL travel are rooted in science fact, and may even be possible from a modern standpoint in physics. But what if warp drives can not exist? What if wormholes are impossible to manufacture? These ever present possibilities would seem to make interstellar travel within human lifespans a romantic fantasy.

Science fiction has been an incubator for Utopian visions of space travel and extrasolar colonization for decades. Each TV show, novel, and movie offers a different means of traversing the stars within human lifespans, akin to how one may drive a car or ride a plane from place to place. To explore the vast expanse of space in human timescales, these stories usually utilize a method of FTL (faster than light) travel aboard grand ...