A more interesting question is what could have happened if NASA had used much more of its funding on practical research (including rocketry research), instead o

A more interesting question is what could have happened if NASA had used much more of its funding on practical research (including rocketry research), instead of wasting a huge amount of it on sending people up into space for no good reason over the past 50 years. Currently, almost half of NASAs budget is spent on manned space flight.