But if they do produce something —then the federal investment was well worth the risk—and a bountiful payoff to tax payers.
This is the sort of things that’s on par with the way the founders made investments early on in the republic. Only then, they would do things like make rivers navigable. Doing so would lower the cost trade and benefit american citizens.
lowering the cost of energy byo fusion would similarly benefit american citizens.
Help me to remember an instance of federal investment in ANY infrastructure prior to Lincoln's subsidies to the transcontinental railroads. Which were jerry-built and unprofitable, except for the Northern Pacific, which took no subsidies.