Catch up and surpass something we launched decades ago, travelling (according to Wikipedia, entry was last edited .. today) 3.595 AU per year [1].
The question you're asking is hard to answer: When do you want to catch up? If we send a new object to space today, which travels 5% faster, is that good enough? It won't pass Voyager 1 for a looooong time, but will eventually.
Is that what you're aiming for? Why? Or are you asking for a magical way to cross that distance (35 years of traveling) 'instantly'?
Considering c is 63,198 AU/yr, and Voyager 1's only about 123 AU away, there's still a lot of room left for future engineers in increasing the speed of our devices to very quickly surpass it. Will we achieve even a hundredth of c within the next 100 years? Depends.
Just wondering, is there any technology we've seen actually used today that could produce a hundredth of c within the next 100 years? Would this be something we could see with ion propulsion for example?
Not used, but planned. Nuclear propulsion. No real limit on speed, apart from C, although as you go farther/faster you need REALLY big ships to carry enough fuel. c.f. project Orion.
The question you're asking is hard to answer: When do you want to catch up? If we send a new object to space today, which travels 5% faster, is that good enough? It won't pass Voyager 1 for a looooong time, but will eventually.
Is that what you're aiming for? Why? Or are you asking for a magical way to cross that distance (35 years of traveling) 'instantly'?
1: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3.595+AU+per+year&d...