I feel comparisons to the Apollo and Manhatten projects, often brought up in this context, are misleading because they ignore the massive pure research bases they were building on. Of course they did do more pure research, but a lot of the cost and muscle/size was for solving engineering problems.

The people contributing to the Apollo program were genuinely frightened of the US being behind in the space race and thus defenseless against strategic military applications of space technology, such as surveillance and early warning satellites, ICBMs or fractional orbit bombardment systems. Already deployed bomber-delivered nuclear bombs were an existential threat only countered by mutual annihilation (bilateral use). Unilateral access to space-delivery of atomic munitions would have shattered this equilibrium. This created a feeling of urgency and common purpose similar to that felt in wartime.

Unfortunately, peacetime development lacks that feeling.