I would like to believe that the side effects of the space race couldn't have been easily emulated by just funding projects directly. I think a lot of the techn

I would like to believe that the side effects of the space race couldn't have been easily emulated by just funding projects directly. I think a lot of the technologies that came out of the time period weren't "Oh, let's make a <technology>." Development seems to have been a result of NASA encountering a problem and then inventing something to fix the problem. That new invention then just so happened to have applications to other fields.