I'm not a Rocket Scientist but I am a Rocket Rider.

I have never conceded to the theory that nothing can go faster than the speed of light. I will concede to nothing known in nature can exceed the speed of light, but the S-O-L is just a number. Long ago the top scientists of the day believed a man could not go faster that 60 MPH without dying. And there are many more examples of what WAS that is no more. Who can say what science will discover in the future.

The power for reaching the speed of light need not be that great.

A solar sail could accelerate a craft to near light speed as the pressure of light pushed against the sail. Its just that the acceleration is so small that it would take a very long time to reach near light speed.

So although I don't think our race will get to develop light speed travel for many 100's of years if we can survive that long, I do think that it is possible.

I don't understand why TIME slows or reverses when you reach or exceed light speed.

The amount of time that passes remains constant right?

If the light from the sun takes 8 minutes to reach you, it does not change the fact that 8 minutes have passed.

Am I missing something?

Time slows due to the mass increase of the object accelerating towards that speed, which is also why the amount of energy required to continue acceleration also rises. Time slows as mass increases due the mass distortion of the space/time continuum. As you asymptotically approach the speed of light, the object mass becomes infinite (and time within it stops relative to other locations, as it would inside a black hole for the same reason), and the energy demand to continue acceleration also becomes infinite.

I believe we will be able to manipulate distance before we can travel faster than light.

It is theoretical stuff. It is mostly unproven with real tests because we can't do most of this stuff anyway .... YET.

.....only in their mind.......

to summarize it:
And THAT'S why I love this forum (cheers)

Wait until you read all about the phase-out of all transport vehicles

or Teleportation (coming soon I'm sure lol)

Stephen Hawkings' book, A Brief History of Time, explains all of this in terms the average non-physicist can easily understand. Everyone should read this book at least twice.

Most of it has in fact been observed, actually. Special Relativity seems to be water-tight, we have measured increases in mass of fast-moving particles, differences in time read by atomic clocks when we synchronise them and put one in a 747 and fly it around the world and leave the other one on the ground etc... We have also seen evidence of General Relativity in the bending of light from stars passing near our sun and have seen effects of frame-dragging with artificial satellites orbiting the earth.

The Fly was a cool movie.....

Brundlefly...