Ping
I believe Samuel Langley spent around $80K of taxpayer money, and failed. He blamed insufficient funding. The Bishop’s Boys spent $5,000 OF THEIR OWN MONEY. And the rest is history.
The government-funded R101 airship went well over budget, never got tested properly, and went down in flames on its first real flight. It was an earlier example of what happens when you let the politicians overrule the engineers. Like the Challenger disaster. The privately-funded R100 met its objectives, and didn’t kill anyone. For much less money.
NASA’s Space Launch System, a political boondoggle driven by the need to distribute boodle to the maximum number of congressional districts, costs 1000 X as much per orbited pound as the anticipated cost of the SpaceX Starship. Some damn body’s making a buck!