Is Star Trek just a dream?

Considering that space travel technology is still in the very early infant stage, I wouldn't lose all hope just yet, my friend.

Not really. We're still just barely unlocking our potential as far as space is concerned. Remember, the greatest technology we had 150 years ago was the steam locomotive which could maybe crack 65 mph if they were lucky and the track was good. As we invent new technologies and fuel sources, we will be able to go much faster, perhaps even unlocking some technology like warp speed or light speed. I don't expect it to happen in any our lifetimes or even our eventual grandchildren's lives, but I am okay with settling for a Moon base or Elon Musk colonizing Mars while we figure stuff out on Earth. Of course, that's assuming aliens don't just come down to Earth and either welcome us to the universe or they go to war against us and we reverse engineer their equipment like in Independence Day and its sequel.

I actually saw something along those lines recently from a retired test pilot who was speaking to those UAP videos recently released. 3 options and he had 3 good points for each.

1. Foreign spy technology

2. Domestic spy technology

3. Aliens

RE #1 - The pentagon wants the biggest budget it can get, and one of the best ways to do that is to show a threat to national security from Russia or China... it it was foreign (but earthly) tech, they would be yelling it from the rooftops "Mr. President, we must not have a 'mine shaft gap!'

RE#3 - If it is aliens, why just toy with us? Either show themselves or use the tech they have to stay hidden, toying does not make much sense.

Which leaves #2

All the videos on both coasts were taken in test flight areas over the ocean. Just like with the bomb and countless other secret technologies, misdirection (its aliens) is a known and frequent tactic to cover what is really going on.

I was a little sad after listening to him. I really really want it to be aliens, unless they are aliens like the ones in the movie 'Aliens' ;)

Hmm, there's definitely interesting arguments for all three. As far as #1 is concerned, I think considering the US outspends China by a factor of nearly 8 to 1, it's not likely to be foreign craft as I would assume the US would have something even more powerful to counter Russia or China. Not to mention hackers can cause so much disruption to a country's infrastructure, someone could potentially take down a regime with the click of a button, which is something not even advanced fighter craft can do. #2 I think is the most likely as well, you hear a lot in magazines like Popular Science about the stuff they have in development like force shields and energy weapons, surely craft like what are being described can't be too out of the question, especially since there's been descriptions of these sort of ships since as far back as WWII. I highly doubt the Manhattan Project was the only top secret project the US was working on, I'm sure the US had a whole lot of other really crazy ideas in development, Nazi Germany as well. It's definitely something I would explore further if I ever got the proper clearance. As for #3, that's an interesting question, why they don't either come down to visit or stay hidden. My guess why they don't come down if that's the case is because they want to make sure they can safely do it without spreading pathogens between our species and theirs. In War of The Worlds, it was germs that took down the Martians, human weapons were effectively useless. Disease has killed more of us than war ever has, I'm sure both humans and aliens don't want that to happen on either side. I think the popping out sometimes instead of staying hidden if they are indeed aliens is sort of a hint to us "Hey, we exist, you should get your act together". If they meant us any actual harm, I think they would have done something about it a long time ago.

the whole matter of universal expansion is still pretty foggy, but that value of 50,000 mph is per million light years. our closest neighbor, alpha centauri, is only 4 light years away. so, if that value of 50,000 mph is applied universally and generally, meaning to galaxies as well as the universe as a whole (which it may well not, as mass in the universe is not at all uniformly distributed or moving in simple patterns), it would mean that alpha centauri is moving away from us at a leisurely 0.2 mph. other stars in our own galaxy might be moving away at speeds up to about 5,000 mph.

the galaxy nearest to ours, Andromeda, is 2.5 million light years away. so one might expect that it is moving away from us at a speed of about 125,000 mph. data indicates however that it is actually moving toward us.

so reaching other stars in our own galaxy is easily possible with current speed technology, although it would take colony ships, and shielding will be a major issue. reaching other galaxies is not within our technological abilities yet, not because of relative speeds in all cases but simply because the much greater distances magnify the survival and craft maintenance challenges for astronauts.

Even without expansion, we are looking at 40,000 +- years to reach Alpha C. I would not put that in the "possible" category yet.

i say possible because we have achieved speeds of over 300,000 mph in the solar system, and our current top speed is simply the record, not a limit. the goal is to maintain the same kind of propulsion with satisfactory shielding, allowing much higher speeds. we haven't done it yet, but i don't see a current technological barrier to it.

I was about to disagree with you, but seems the Parker Solar Probe has done just that, thanks for the 'edumaction' :)