[jeffreyrogers]

Life sciences is about the only area of science that has promising new technology coming out of it. Almost every other area is incremental.

Nuclear reactor design: mostly already considered by the Navy in the 50s and 60s.

Space Exploration: Space shuttle was reusable too. Rockets that could land were demonstrated in the 90s IIRC (admittedly SpaceX improved on this quite a bit).

Electric/Renewable Powered Aircraft: Soviet Union had a hydrogen powered airliner.

I'm not saying the new stuff isn't impressive. It is and those small improvements add up to a lot, but it's not revolutionary in the way a jet engine or a nuclear reactor was.