"Necessity is the mother of invention". If you don't desperately need something, you don't need to put resources into developing it. Unfortunately, war has driven technological progress. And that also includes the space programme. If the cold war hadn't driven the space race, then I suspect space exploration would be a distant and poorly-funded priority.

Without a sufficiently good reason, governments won't put money directly into research (at least, in the eye-wateringly large quantities spent in wartime).