Worth watching the initial announcement by Reagan: https://www.pbs.org/video/american-experience-reagan-announc... Starts with "American does possess NOW, the technologies..." tails into - hey scientists, show us something cool we can use to do this. So initially it was a big pot of money for ideas to achieve it. Then you had the big companies set the direction with space lasers, few CGI's (that cost loads to make) in a time that it was still very new for TV and suddenly you have the media and directional focus going with that - as a majority of people of that era will recall it due to media focus upon that, at the time -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smrZrimAuis "STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE STAR WARS RONALD REAGAN 33112"

But 30 years later, and only starting to see lasers deployed upon very large ships - shows how long it can take from feasible towards practical and dare say, still kinda in the flintlock stage of it's evolutionary cycle. But then, we may well see power generating inventions born out of the need to power these things, trickling down into consumer hands, which would tie in with the title most aptly.