This is basically how R&D works these days. The government (very frequently the military) assumes the risk of very high risk research and farms that work out to

This is basically how R&D works these days. The government (very frequently the military) assumes the risk of very high risk research and farms that work out to national labs, government research institutions, large research universities, then the most promising looking avenues are trickled down to industry, lower tier research universities, industrial research labs, etc. At some point, all the science will get done and the work will slide over to more engineering type work and we'll end up with a neat plane/gun/database/internet/drug/medical test/etc.