[pedrocr]

The options aren't 800billion for NASA or 800billion for Burt Rutan. The options are 800 billion for NASA or a slightly lower tax rate for millions of people and corporations, mostly the wealthier ones (as those pay the most tax). Do you still think those dollars would have generated as much innovation in the private sector?

I agree that NASA hasn't done the best use of its money, the space shuttle was particularly useless. But the solution for that isn't to not have these large well-funded research programs. It's probably to make more efficient use of the private sector to run parts of them. But even NASA does that already. This article itself was about an underwear company designing a space suit because NASA contracted it out. Do you think these guys would have developed the technology they did if it wasn't for the Moonshot?

Even your article just seems to argue that NASA is late in letting go of now mature stuff and letting the private sector take over. Do you actually think we would have ever gone to the moon without the USA/USSR space race? Even the aviation comparison is suspect. How much of the technology in the modern airliner is the result of large governments funding military aviation?