[DaiPlusPlus]

NASA and JPL and other ostensible civilian employers of rocket-scientists and other aerospace engineering experts has a nice side-effect of effectively giving the government a strategic-reserve of highly-skilled experts who can be reassigned to ASAT, ICBM and bomber weapons development at short-notice - and also means those same experts aren't employed by any rival or potential rival superpowers.

...kinda like how the US's civilian nuclear fusion programs were/are a way to keep people who-just-so-happen to be nuclear weapons experts gainfully employed and handily available after the cold war ended. Y'know... just in case!