But your point was that private companies do big pure research...like Mars missions or moon missions. The truth is they don’t. They take government money (and direction).
Look you and I are probably not disagreeing in any major way. I prefer private companies to be given the appropriate economic atmosphere to do big research (the days of Bell Labs and the Skunkworks or sadly long gone). There are places for the government to provide funding and direction for big research.
what say you ?