Sailing ships, prairie schooners, rocket ships, and the new technology transported these voyagers into different frontiers, but they all faced a similar problem. Upon arrival, they found that civility, ethical practices, individual rights, and the law had been left behind. The exploration of space around Earth and the probing of the Solar System involves a few thousand, perhaps, and you may never get any nearer than watching the launches on television.
Scientists know that very few discoveries and inventions are made of whole cloth.
The time becomes 'ripe' for a given invention, it is 'in the air,' so to speak. In fact, the necessary knowledge is assembling itself in the network, ready to leap out at the first person with sufficient sensitivity to recognize that it is there, already manufactured by a process much bigger than any of us alone. I guess it shows that a lot of people are thinking about the same sort of things these days. It's the only way they'll make back their money.