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> Maybe, but what's the point in not generating 7 dollars of economic activity for every dollar spent, inspiring millions, and bootstrapping the process?

Because not spending that dollar on putting a guy on the moon could have generated 20 dollars elsewhere.

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It could have, yes. Would it?

This is why historians are leery of counter-factuals; unless you have very strong evidence that it would have happened, you have nothing but a "could have" hypothesis.

Yea, seems pretty loose to assume those dollars would have generated three times the economic impact of the space program if they'd been left in individuals hands.

Companies certainly innovate, but the government innovates a _lot_ (primarily through research grants which are eventually developed into products by entrepreneurs as far as I can tell, also the military).

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