They wouldn't need FTL. Sufficiently[0] powerful rockets with a sufficiently dense fuel source could reach relativistic speeds, allowing the travelers to experi

They wouldn't need FTL. Sufficiently[0] powerful rockets with a sufficiently dense fuel source could reach relativistic speeds, allowing the travelers to experience the journey in less time than the trip takes according to an outside observer. For instance, accelerating at 1G toward our nearest neighboring star for half the distance, then slowing down for the other half, a traveler could arrive in 3.5 years instead of the "minimum" 4.3. Of course, from Earth's perspective it took 5.9 years, but that's not important. The effect is exponential, such that a trip to the center of the Milky Way, ~30kly, would only take 20yrs ship time (30,002yrs Earth time). [0] "Sufficiently" in this case meaning "pretty ludicrously".