Steve Blank has a series of blog posts you might find interesting, talking about the birth of Silicon Valley as a result of SigInt in a post WW2 era.

http://steveblank.com/secret-history/

I find his blog posts better than the video.

Implying there was not a space arms race?

But there was. It wasn't a classic arms race with actual vehicles parading down the street, but money was spent, research was done.

Two things we have as a result are adaptive optics, and the anti-ballistic missile defense systems now coming on line.

I wasn't implying that. I guess the vibe I've always gotten is that space technology innovation has slowed pretty significantly since the height of the space race and that it would have been neat to see it get reinvigorated so recently.

I'm not a subject matter expert, but in the last decade, there have been some huge strides forward in aerospace: SS1 for example was a _brilliant_ hack on the 'how do we get back from the edge of space without burning to cinders' problem.

NASA, faced with the problem, designed high-tech and fragile ceramics. Rutan, same problem, designed a craft that emulates a badminton birdie.

It's not that simple, but you get the idea.