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An average of 2.5% per year for 10 years. It would be like spending $575B per year now on a percentage of GDP basis.

You can do a lot of things with that money. Now we're talking about missions doing it for a once off $100M. So yes, massive progress has been made.

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I think people do not give the shoulders that SpaceX stands on as much credit, some do of course, but the general populace doesn't think that way like those that are space nerds. NASA tried things, ULA tried things, Russia tried things, ESA tried things, and then SpaceX comes along and gets make decisions with all of that historical knowledge. This isn't an indictment on SpaceX, but acknowledging that historical money spent wasn't wasted. Space and rocket R&D is expensive, but it's cheap if you can have it funded by the tax payer. Not having the burden of requiring Congressional approval also avoids the moving at the pace of a herd of turtles.

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