GP is hyperbolic but essentially correct. Generally, states will move as much as science and technology research that is not militarily sensitive to the public sphere - such as NASA. This is because many scientists won't work for the military directly [1], but will work on stuff that has both military and non-military applications.

Many people have also written quite a lot about how the race to the moon was primarily funded because it was a military domination competition. Once the USSR decisively lost, the US stopped doing that expensive science. A good overview of the geopolitics of space exploration and research is the book Dark Skies by Daniel Deudney [2].

[1] Combination of ethical reasons and having to do security checks and your freedoms somewhat restricted.

[2] https://global.oup.com/academic/product/dark-skies-978019090...