Just "what's up there?" was driving some early experimenters before WW II. Smaller rockets are not so complex and large (and expensive). Small-scale explorati

Just "what's up there?" was driving some early experimenters before WW II. Smaller rockets are not so complex and large (and expensive). Small-scale exploration of the upper atmosphere with sounding rockets would have proceeded, which would have driven development of better small rockets. At some point, someone would start seriously thinking of putting a small telecom or geonav satellite up there. But I do tend to think that without the public investment we saw along military and PR lines that space research would have been very seriously delayed. Something like $100+ billion in public funds between the US and USSR to develop ICBMs, which then translates to heavy satellite launch and etc.