> What makes you so sure?

Doctrine and propaganda can make someone that sure, and the thing they're sure about doesn't even have to be true.

> There's been massively successful government funded and run projects before. Soviets beat the Americans to space, after all.

Don't let facts get in the way of ideology!

Also the Americans subsequently beating the Soviets to the moon was the government literally allocating huge amounts of capital towards the literal trope-namer moonshot.