[pfdietz]

The handwaving is on your side. How could it be otherwise? To demonstrate a spinoff effect, you have to show that the technology would not have been developed otherwise. But such contrafactual history is just about impossible to prove. And in technology, it's almost always the case that technologies come about because it's time for them to come about (it's "steam engine time"), not because of one irreplaceable inventor or group.

> the fact is they triggered those economic returns.

Your blind faith in this dogma is touching, but it isn't supported by real evidence. For example, if you examine what actually happened, the NASA role in developing integrated circuits was rather minor.