Oh come now, you're being naive if you don't think a lot of DoD spending doesn't advance the sciences. I'm not saying NASA and non-military sciences shouldn't get more funding, but to paint it the way you did is willfully ignorant.
Now let's get this thread back on topic.
As I brought up, they are funding black satellites for spying. As far as innovation goes? We don't see crap from the DoD for space. Certainly they have their own science projects as any military must, but that crap isn't going to filter down to being technology for the general public. The Navy is spa ding billions on an energy cannon that is in advanced testing stages. Maybe 1-20 of these projects have real use appllications. The rest are strictly military in gear, and can questionably be seen as ever having any form of it be used in non-military purposes. And further, this is talking DoD R&D funding, which is going to be a pittance compared with the full budget.
Looked it up, $20 billion in DoD R&D. Consider spy satellites taking up at least 25%. next gen ships/planes/tanks/weapons another 60%+... All of my estimates might be moot if they are still doing Star Wars and sinking billions in that. Bottom line, the tech innovations for humanity have come from NASA and the NSF since the 90s. We are fighting wars wit guys using sticks, so we aren't exactly fighting tooth and nail with the USSR for technological superiority. I just can't buy the argument the DoD is making all of this ok. Not when we lose human space flight. Not when we have basically lost marquee science probes, launching once a decade now instead of 2-4. When our particle accelerators are at risk of being shut down. All of them. There is nothing there DoD can take up the slack on, or would want to. They have $20 billion, and as comparatively small as that is with what they need to do with it, that's a dog not in this fight.
