There is nothing we need to invent to be able to start a permanent human presence outside near earth orbit.
Transport. Life support. Communication. etc
Wether is it something we should be devoting the level of investment required to do it when there are so many issues that need attention on earth is another matter.
When it comes to astrophysics, you may as well quote deadpool: "Maximium effort"
Nothing has in the last century (a time when we have had thousands of astrophysicists working on it) to dismiss the limits that are inherent in space-time as Einstein described.
Humans may get the trip to Alpha Centauri down to 80 years of so, (accelerating to 10% of c at the halfway point) but that is literally next door.
I'm very excited about kinetic gun type launch tech. Its way to harsh for humans, but it could get cargo to space very cheaply. If that were true the building blocks for a huge space station suddenly become much more economically feasible.
Kinetic gun type launch is great for transporting materials from earth to within our solar system, we need methods for either the best method that is best suitable for humans to travel in space or humans must adopt to harsh traveling methods.
What would be really be a game changer in this regard is either a Space Elevator type system (which would be really difficult and expensive to build even if we did have suitable materials to do it) or a Reusable Single-Stage To Orbit rocket (even the mighty Starship rocket is two stages, so this is also very difficult to achieve).
As for actual travel in space, faster is better (both in the sense that it limits exposure to cosmic radiation and microgravity, two things proven harmful to human health; and also that it reduces the need to carry a large amount of provisions onboard for a long trip), so it helps for instance to have in-orbit refuelling capability (so you can actually use your rocket engine to propel you faster) or different engines such as nuclear propulsion engines that have better performance than existing chemical rockets.