They're not post-hoc at all, military power was the entire reason world powers went to space to begin with, not science.
And private aerospace has highly monopolized themselves -- there's a reason there's so many hyphenated company names in this space. Consolidation is the natural evolution of large private companies in industries with high barriers to entry. The only mechanism we have to counter that is public spending that intentionally props up smaller players. SpaceX would already be out of business if it weren't for the US government swooping in to save the day. They didn't have a viable commercial business until later.
And private aerospace has highly monopolized themselves -- there's a reason there's so many hyphenated company names in this space. Consolidation is the natural evolution of large private companies in industries with high barriers to entry. The only mechanism we have to counter that is public spending that intentionally props up smaller players. SpaceX would already be out of business if it weren't for the US government swooping in to save the day. They didn't have a viable commercial business until later.