One thing is acknowledging that if you pour lots of money into getting better at anything (space exploration, waging war, etc) you'll get cool technological advances applicable in other areas.

Another thing is to specifically choose to dedicate resources to one of those areas instead of another area. Why can't google bid on AI projects for better detection of geological landmarks in other planets? (which I'm guessing is a similar endeavor to what the article mentions - and already has ongoing research)