Jules Verne is fun to read in this regard because the people who organized to go to the moon in "From Earth To The Moon" were simply part of a gun club that chose to fund the effort privately, not the government. It reflects how people had a different relationship with the government in the 19th century.

Before the income tax, people like Rockefeller would just bail companies out during panics from their personal bank accounts, much to the consternation of bankers like J.P Morgan. Private individuals were massively more economically powerful and that's were people looked for progress. Only Elon Musk comes close to this level of economic power in the modern era, especially because he is a hands on industrialist and not a financier, but there were probably a few hundred who had that level of influence back then and they were mostly industrialists.