Maybe the "UFOs" we've been seeing for the last couple of centuries are scout craft for these star systems, making sure there's no civilizations along their path that could cause trouble.
Heck, I've found myself walking near people (in downtown Philadelphia) who were on their phone GIVING THEIR CREDIT CARD INFO! The first time I heard it I thought the person was just some random idiot, but I've since heard half a dozen other people doing the same thing!
People should check out a series of "prequel" comics that came out a while before the movie. They go into the ISO thing in more depth, and also the turning of Tron into a bad guy. Although they really should have put this sort of stuff IN the bloody movie, rather than making us search out the stuff.
If we could get that skyhook/space elevator thing worked out, it would be a perfect way to bring raw materials down. Or set up the refining/manufacturing facilities in orbit and get all the pollution and waste products off-planet. Cheap power from solar collectors up there, to.
I've found one thing that Bing does better than Google, image searches. I was trying to find a picture that someone in a forum had described (but couldn't find) and I tried looking for it with Google. No dice, a ton of unrelated stuff as usual. Then, just for the halibut, I tried Bing. Came up on the first page. After that I've tried it with various other image searches, and Bing always came through. For any other types of searching though, Google is usually better.