Uh, in that case we'll have to disagree. I think corporations in general do a better job of spending money than the government, but I don't have hard evidence for that view.

> I think corporations in general do a better job of spending money than the government

Agreed. To add perspective, I don't believe corporations will give a crap about the people (extreme example, Amazon) like we believe our respective governments should. I'd rather have bad spending on keeping people alive than no spending at all.

In my experience, corporations are great at finding ways to get "innovation grants" and "R&D tax incentives" for things that involve no real research or innovation.

Instead of actually promoting innovation, they tend to become a subsidy for the tech industry.

historically, the Government is by far the worst spender of money. they have the greatest power, and the worst track record.

What's the data here? Didn't "the government" create the internet, tons of medical research, the interstate highway system, etc?

Meanwhile Joe Schmoe bought yet another iPad (which wouldn't exist without the government inventing much of computer tech) to go in a landfill in two years. But at least he funded Apple's ability to make a brand new, basically identical model, next year.

How do we measure who has a "good" track record on spending money?

Just ask anyone who has worked for the US Government, Military, or contractors.

To avoid pure anecdotes, the Government Accountability Office actually studies this every year: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-440sp ...

That's not to say I don't believe in government spending. I don't know that there is a much better solution, and any conglomeration of humans is going to have roughly equal capacity for doing the right thing and doing the wrong thing, hopefully weighted more towards the "right" thing with solid leadership...

I don't think that supports your premise. That's like a company report showing where it wasn't spending its money optimally. All institutions, public and private, waste money in some way.

"Why? I'd rather corporations spend money on RND than the Gov on programs."

R&D would get us fastest nice things like space colonization, longevity, megastructures, the next step on the Kardashev scale.

As far as I know, it was Nasa that put a man on the moon, not some coorporation. Also: the internet was invented by the government. What nice things have corporations given you?

NASA was the program manager for the Apollo program. You don’t think NASA actually built the rockets or the various modules, do you?

NASA doled out public money to prime contractors for various pieces of the program (North American, Grumman, Rocketdyne, Douglas, IBM...) and the primes subcontracted various pieces as they always do.

This is not to understate the tremendous engineering effort of organizing such a huge program, but it’s not like this achievement was done by a bunch of government workers alone.

I'm not agreeing with either you or the OP but in answer to your question: Being able to watch reusable space rockets.