Comment by pfannkuchen

Unsatisfying dismissal. Duplication of efforts is WAI. Other two happen in government generally.

Can you name the examples you are thinking of where this happened to apparently an extreme degree?

Also not all government programs are equal. Space travel has the handy property of being easy to apply simple objective metrics (“did you land on the moon, y/n?”), unlike almost every other agency (“is our children learning?”).