What came first: a carry-on bag with wheels or the moon landing? Shockingly, Neil Armstrong’s giant leap for mankind happened nearly two decades before people started rolling luggage around airports. In this episode of Johan Norberg’s New and Improved, you’ll learn why.

Why did the simple act of combining two ancient inventions (the bag and the wheel) not catch on until after radically advanced innovations such as manned space flight? Thinkers disagree and point to different considerations about the ability of our species to innovate.

Innovation isn't always predictable. The value of wheeled luggage seems obvious today, but it wasn’t a priority before widespread air travel or increasingly large airports. Sometimes good ideas require the perfect confluence of factors before they finally catch on.