Buying something is funding it, he then used his money to get that taxpayer money

the end result is what matters here, NASA should have way more control over their operations and much more funding but that’s not how it is sadly, and if we did prosthetics the same way the shuttle program went we’d still be stuck on hooks

anything government funded has so much excess bureaucracy that it’ll never be fast, best we can hope for is the lowest level being fast so the common person doesn’t experience delays on current stuff, but R&D is only going to go fast if there’s some big incentive, and again, without someone powerful or some nutcase cutting off thousands of arms overnight, the incentive won’t be there

Von Braun, critical to the apollo program, would never have been hired if not for his work on the V2 rocket, and NASA would never have been funded enough for the apollo program if not for the soviets and the space race

kiddo you’re living in a fantasy world, social programs are amazing for stuff that’s here and now, but they don’t push development without immense pressure