Live on the fastest lane

50,000 years ago homo sapiens lived in the caves.

5000 thousand years ago we learned the art of horse riding. That gave us the average speed of 10 miles per hour.

3500 years ago we invented the chariot. That was a fast vehicle, and could reach 20 miles per hour in good circumstances.

Around 180 the locomotive brok the chariot record, and near the end of XIX century, let's say 120 years ago it even broke the 100 miles per hour.

For less then 80 years, the airplanes have soared with speeds faster then locomotive, reaching 400 miles 60 year ago and soon afterwards breaking the sound barrier.

For less then 40 years we have been able to reach escape volocity speeds of 7+ km/s allowing rockets to leave Earth. Thats 18,000 miles per hour or so.

Now consider this. It took us 45,000 years to move from walking speed to 10-20 miles per hour. It took us another 4,800 to quadruple that record with steam engine and railroads. It took us 100 years to quadruple it again with early aeroplanes. And then in 20 years we increased by more then 40 times.

Any bets on when we are going to break the light speed barrier and invent an FTL engine?