If dod research labs are like NNSA research labs part of why 0.4 FTEs can be considered significant investment is because overheads are quite high. My experience is that for every dollar a FTE makes their project is paying an additional 2-3 dollars in overhead. That means your $130K/yr FTE is using 50% of your $1M/yr budget.

I'm not sure what the typical cost for an FTE are in industry, but I believe they are lower than 3-4x base salary.