But when will then be now?

I want to say, it already has happened and is happening. Meta just isn't where it's at. It's in VRC and a couple other smaller games like it. This small company has vastly proved to be a powerhouse more capable than Meta in getting VR tech off the ground for the dumbest reasons. I mean full body tracking, Haptic feedback suits and even adult items (unofficially) are supported through this game. VRC has done more for the small community of VR adopters and believers than Meta has done for anything VR related with the billions it's thrown at the 'problem'.

Your answer has made me wonder. In the future if we have surface to space aircraft would they theoretically be able to enter Earth's atmosphere at a slow enough rate (with some form of propulsion assistance) to enter with little to no friction?

Thorium reactors and newer designs are incredibly efficient. On top of that nuclear waste isn't that big of a deal, there's plenty of places to keep it, but the biggest hurdle is people. Lot of people have boogeyman thoughst about anything nuclear thanks to Oil and Gas companies lobbying against it back in the 80's and 90's. I love renewables, I'm ready for them, however can they handle peak loads? Can they keep a stable output 24/7? We have to store excess power to help during peak loads or if something were to occur, what technoligies exist that's cost efficient and as good or better than just running a few nuclear plants in a region? Electrcity transmission for a country is complex and daunting and there's more to it than just "Plop some more turbines and solar panels".

Except the point of nuclear is to replace coal and gas power plants with something much greener to help keep a strong stable power in the transmission lines.

All these stories aren't pointing at nuclear being unreliable, all of these articles have issues that could also pop up in cheaper power productions as well.

The french one they discovered corrosion and crackign in critical cooling pipes that seems to have been a manufacturing defect. So they shut down similar reactors for inspection to be safe.

The one in Belgium had a short circuit in a critical component, again something that can easily happen with other productions of power.

To me it seems you hand picked these stories because they forwarded your goal, but you conveniently left out WHY these places were shut down hoping someone wouldn't actually read them. Coal and Natural gas plants are cheap to run (or used to be anyway) and they had issues all the time that required down time. It's just unfortunate that in these cases the faults that occurred are in critical systems so the whole reactor needed to be shut down until it can be fixed.