I prefer my version where they match their speed, knock on the window like Matthew McConaughey and say, "You losers getting in? We're going colonizing!"

I mean that's true, but it's not worth losing sleep over either. Yes a disruptive technology based on scalability will always make decades of research look like a waste of time to the lay person.

It also would be impossible without the insights gained from those decades of research. It is the same with galactic travel.

The first mission to the nearest star will not be the first ones to get there. We will have a colony waiting on them to arrive at the objectively slow almost the speed of light. The technology the colonists used to get there in 20 minutes wouldn't have happened without all of the advances made just to get that first lemon into space.

That's my two cents.