I think it comes to needs. Military needs a way to position vehicles, you get gps, same goed for arpanet. A good chunk of military inventions are done by civil

I think it comes to needs. Military needs a way to position vehicles, you get gps, same goed for arpanet. A good chunk of military inventions are done by civilians on military funding. I think it is the desire in US military to be always on the bleeding edge, and the accountability that it brings. There is also less pressure for profit, I guess. You said digging holes, elon musk is doing that boring job :)