What you said:
manned space program amounts to precious little more than publicly-funded, pork-barrel joyrides for a lot of so-called "conservative," armchair Captain Kirks.
Again, to keep it within the bounds of your comprehension, the essence of your sentance was:
manned space program amounts to.......joyrides for a lot "armchair Captain Kirks.
You might have said 'proxy joyrides', or 'voyeuristic joyrides, but, failing to comprehend the meaning of the word joyride, you wrote what you wrote.
Point is, you can't refute any of the examples I offered. You can’t point to any market forces that would have given us the computer as rapidly as the space program. So don’t bother, it would just give you a headache anyway.
Nice try, but "armchair" Captain Kirks means they're not participants. Look it up.
Believe it or not, I had initially typed, "vicarious joyrides for ... armchair Captain Kirks." However, I decided that was redundant. I just now looked up "armchair" and, by golly, it turns out I was right.
But, as it turns out, due to your own (as you put it yourself) failing to comprehend the meaning of the word "armchair," you seem to be one for whom redundancy is necessary. My bad for giving you too much credit.
("voyeuristic"?! LOL!)
As for refuting your "examples", they have nothing to do with my point, which has always been to say your initial statement -- that we WOULD NOT HAVE the PC if it weren't for the manned space program -- was so much smoke-blowing ("b*llsh*t," if that helps you understand). "Heavily pushed" or not, if you have something to back up your b*llsh*t that we WOULD NOT HAVE the PC if not for manned space flight, bring it on.
Face it, you're not as smart as you think.