there is Mars which is feasible with current propulsion system but you are right - we need to make some serious breakthroughs if we don't want to go bankrupt paying for the current crap.

...if you want to understand why rockets are so bad for actually getting anywhere look here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket

Scroll down to the section about net thrust and you'll find this equation:

F=(dm/dt)V

the force the rocket feels is equal to the change in mass multiplied by the velocity of the exhaust. Makes sense right? The more fuel you throw out the back and the faster that fuel goes out the back the great thrust you get. We are neglecting the second term in the equation having to do with the difference in exhaust and ambient pressure at the exhaust plane.

Okay now consider Newton's second law:

F= dp/dt usually written as F=ma
Force equals the change in momentum per unit time, or force equals mass times acceleration.

so (dm/dt)V=ma

Careful the two m's are different so I'm going to change the second m to m(rocket)

(dm/dt)V=m(rocket)a

rearrange the equation a little and it is

[(dm/dt)V]/m(rocket)=a

in other words the acceleration is equal to the mass of exhaust times the velocity of the exhaust all divided by the mass of the rocket.

But we know something about the relation of m and m(rocket), namely we know that the mass of the fuel used in any given moment has to be less than the mass of the rocket (which had just contained the fuel). Furthermore it has to be MUCH less unless we are burning the entirety of the rocket's fuel in one burst. So we can think of the rocket equation in these terms:

[(mass burned each instant)/(total mass of rocket)] V=a

where the ratio of mass burned to mass rocket is <<1

Now there is no way to improve that ratio because physically a rocket cannot burn more mass of fuel than it holds.

There's another form of this equation here:

Vf = Ve ln(M0 / Mf)

The final velocity of the rocket is equal to the velocity of the exhaust times the natural log of the total mass of the rocket divided by the final mass (with no fuel). This is if there are no other forces operating (like air resistance pseudoforce, or gravity). A typical rocket is 90% fuel. This means the equation becomes

Vf=Ve ln (10)= 2.3Ve

So if we had no other problems (like breaking orbit) we could still only ever get a rocket that is 90% fuel going 2.3x the exhaust velocity (and we'd have no way to stop it if we did).