I'm not necessarily supportive of the contract or the spending or whatever, but I just want to present a reframing of the costs: imagine it's just 1000 headsets, but they're so useful they cut $1B/year+ in costs (or allow for $1B/year+ in extra operational capacity) annually for the next 50+ years. This is, allegedly, foundational work on a transformative technology, so maybe that's "the dream".

Now ... is that realistic? haha