[Shivetya]

Well this technology certainly has far more uses than the military, specifically search and rescue. Send these puppies in to hard hit areas, isolated spots, and the like, with supplies and such. The military will get their robots so we have to accept that but we can use all that research into making them do useful and humanitarian missions. No one will care if that rescue robot is noisy.

[jt2190]

In general the amount of U.S. government spending for "search and rescue" is dwarfed by spending on the military. In that context having a military application (or the pretense of one) for this tech gives it access to the money necessary to continue research.