Crystal Ball? Fireball XL5?
Ideas and concepts often come early way before the technology is developed to make them a practicality.
vide the development of the gas turbine, first proposed in almost complete but completely recognisable form by one John Barber in
1791.
Wiki goes on to say,
- 1899: Charles Gordon Curtis patented the first gas turbine engine in the US.[7]
- 1900: Sanford Alexander Moss submitted a thesis on gas turbines. In 1903, Moss became an engineer for General Electric's Steam Turbine Department in Lynn, Massachusetts.[8] While there, he applied some of his concepts in the development of the turbocharger.[8]
- 1903: A Norwegian, Ęgidius Elling, built the first gas turbine that was able to produce more power than needed to run its own components, which was considered an achievement in a time when knowledge about aerodynamics was limited. Using rotary compressors and turbines it produced 8 kW (11 hp).[9]
Aviation, computers and robots share a similar lengthy flash-to-bang development history.
Aircraft took 50 years before they became a really practical form of transport rather than a rather exotic niche curiosity and rocketry, despite being orders of magnitude more complex is developing on a not too disimilar timescale in which the vision of Musk and SpaceX is proving a historic scene-shifter.