I have always felt that conventional space exploration is vain, a waste of energy and resources. Our efforts would be much better focused internally on learning how to manipulate the world around us on increasingly smaller scales. Focus on mastering the physical world and reality to the point space and time are no longer the barriers they are now. Learn how to be world builders and preservers first before using the resources of this one to try and discover others.
This is why I prefer the Barrow Scale for measuring civilization stages over the Kardaschev Scale.
https://verse-and-dimensions.fandom....i/Barrow_scale
I am willing to bet that if aliens are skipping around the universe and visiting Earth, that they skipped the part where they attach themselves to conventional fuel rockets. In fact, I think if you don’t focus internally first, you probably don’t make it out of the great filter to begin with.