The defense sector is a big source of funding for basic scientific research. That stuff takes a while to pay off -- decades, usually. GPS and the Internet are o

The defense sector is a big source of funding for basic scientific research. That stuff takes a while to pay off -- decades, usually. GPS and the Internet are old because of that; when they were more recent investments, they weren't useful (yet). One of the more recent massive success stories is KeyHole, which became Google Maps. It was originally funded by In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital arm.