"born too late to explore the world, born too early to explore space"

good sentence. Which counted for all times for a majority of people. Couple of hundred years ago one could explore the world as an adventurer or salesman on a ship - being usually male - becoming sea sick or ill with too few nutritions or threatened by infections and all kinds of diseases. But at least having explored the unknown. Also, as a housewife in the 50s this sentence would count as she may have taken an airplane to a hotel in the Caribbean Sea and maybe have gotten a glimpse on a local market, but this doesn't count as exploration, only holidays.

This sentence also counted for the owner of a great castle who must have stayed home in order to run the whole thing and the surrounding villagers as well as the authorities. As well a farmer could not explore the world as he had to feed his own and some others.

Neither for a midwife nor a doctor the exploration would have been possible.

The only ones ever were able to explore the world for example were the invaders, lonely adventurers or archeologists, the outcasts, the crazy ones or the monks on pilgrimage. Or those walking the thousand miles of the silk street or other caravan routes. Exploring the world means to put your life in danger.

I guess the real explorers of the world were the early human nomads.

If you are not one of those (or participating in training for space-affairs), willing to put your life at risk, I think being nostalgic about is not needed. Because there is still plenty of occasions you could do so. ;-)