Ah ha ha but the speed of light is impossible to achieve through means of mechanical acceleration...
And I'm literally shocked that the people who are trying to reach it this have not realized this
Aside from this, if you somehow did reach the speed of light, you would become "STUCK" outside the space-time continuum.
Because time stops, it now becomes impossible to decelerate from the speed or (more appropriately) "state" of the speed of like... This makes light eternal... If the energy of light was never absorbed, it would travel infinitely.
Imagine what would happen if you were able to align a beam of light to bounce between two mirrors perfectly aligned?
This is why when you decelerate light, (even to 38 mph) it remains light and does not convert into matter. So basically, no amount of money will get me to be the first human to travel at the speed of light. Not to mention, if you were able to convert all the matter in my body into pure energy, you could create an explosion that could destroy the galaxy.
This is why the universe is theorized to be "expanding" at the speed of light. (because remember that space, time, and velocity are all related.)