From what I understand, its a physical barrier. As you get closer to light-speed, your mass becomes less and your density becomes greater. Basically, you get really small and really heavy. At the barrier of light-speed, you are supposed to have no mass and infinite density. Theres one problem with that- how to accelerate someting infinitely heavy. The object being accelerated would get heavier and heavier, but it would need to be accelerated faster and faster. Thus, an infinite amount of energy would be needed to push something to light-speed. Impossible.