Surely some technologies show early promise but turn out to be evolutionary dead ends though, and we just don't know/think about them because they didn't end up

Surely some technologies show early promise but turn out to be evolutionary dead ends though, and we just don't know/think about them because they didn't end up relevant to modern life. Maybe one example is space travel. My parents generation was apparently convinced that we'd have hotels on the moon by 1990. Probably most 20 year olds don't think we'll have hotels on the moon in their lifetime now.