It wasn't mainly that money got thrown at research. It was mainly that several generations of researchers were funneled into a singular mission, fueled by patri

It wasn't mainly that money got thrown at research. It was mainly that several generations of researchers were funneled into a singular mission, fueled by patriotism / ideology / propaganda. A JFK speech calling the nation to adventure + a blank cheque to your org + Walter Cronkite on tv & your nephew at school calling you a hero researcher can get a lot of basic science done. Is that basic science better aimed at a moon landing or better aimed at stopping people from dying from colorectal cancer? A moon landing is inspirational (and theoretically achievable) whereas stopping colorectal cancer is a big abstract "maybe". A moon landing gets you "don't mess with us because we have amazing rockets & targeting systems" cred. A "we can now save millions of our citizens from this one cancer" gets you "our capitalist society is more advanced than your communist society" cred. I'm not saying Moon Landing wasn't the obvious choice or wasn't the right choice. I'm saying it wasn't as generally valuable as other choices.