No one embarks on enterprises of this scale for their own sake, they do it because it's profitable. Sometimes the R&D needed to bootstrap new technology isn't profitable, even if it would be once developed. The only way to force organizational structures (e.g. the government) to do this development is to tie it to another goal, like beating the USSR. This was the case with a lot of other technologies we got out of the space program.
The hardest part of any progress is the social engineering.
>The only way to force organizational structures (e.g. the government) to do this development is to tie it to another goal
I’m usually pretty much against the “The ends justify the means” philosophy. It’s just too easy to rationalize doing bad things as a way to a potentially good result.
I don’t think the profit motive needs to always be aligned, but the value system does. In this case, the US valued “beating” the USSR for existential reasons. Whether it was profitable or not didn’t factor into the equation much.
The hardest part of any progress is the social engineering.