But only a few thousand in our immediate galaxy.

… but so far apart we’ll likely never meet or even hear from them ?

We're likely never to meet or hear from them even if they were a mere 5 light-years.

It's easier for Michael Jordan to jump to the Moon, than for man to travel to the nearest star.

Weird popsci analogy.

Travel to the nearest star takes a very long time. Michael Jordan can train for thousands of years and will never leave atmosphere with his jump.

Agree it is odd, but I guess they mean through successive jumps always starting from the previous height. (Like jumping up a large staircase).

they obviously didn't, choosing a person with extraordinary jumping ability implies they achieve it in one jump

And we have gone to the moon, despite it having been impossible for millennia.

And we understand the basic physics of traveling to another star. The only problem is: it's going to take a ridiculous amount of time, and we don't want to do that for a myriad of reasons (money, risk, time), but if we really absolutely wanted to, we could, and there'd be a non-zero chance we'd succeed. Unlike Michael Jordan jumping to the moon.