No, only to the scientifically illiterate. Smart and knowledgeable people had long known that the earth was round(ish), going back to antiquity, and that if you sailed west and didn’t sink you’d eventually reach land, whether uncharted or the eastern shores of known lands. That was the whole basis of the various exploration expeditions of that era. They KNEW they’d hit land. They just didn’t know which land.
We KNOW we can never get much beyond the solar system, not in any human lifetime, and certainly not to other solar systems. Sci-fi is great but it’s still fi. Every known law of physics says it’s impossible. Of course I suppose that it’s theoretically possible that we figure out a way around this someday. But as of now, it’s not only not possible, it’s not realistically imaginable.
Also, if we were ever going to detect life beyond our solar system via radio transmissions, it was either going to happen within literally minutes of starting to listen, or never. Think about it. Time, distance, probability, advanced life, technology, the lifespan of civilizations. I’m not saying that there isn’t life as if not more advanced than ours out there. I firmly believe that there is, has been, or will be, likely all three. It’s just that we’re extremely unlikely to intersect with them, even via radio, and certainly physically. Hell, if we were ever going to get to them, one of them would have gotten here by now.
