I do not think that all the development must be done by private enterprise. That said, if we the people pay for the development then any patents or intellectual property belongs in the public domain. Entrepreneur spirit and risk taking is the way to significant returns. If the government (read us) pay for the R&D then the rights do not belong to the people or company who did the work. The company I worked for for over 40 years did all the development and design work of our initial products under research contract to a major corporation. The designs we started selling were our designs, all the rights and patents belonged to the corporation that paid for the development. We paid them a royalty for all product produced under the patents they owned.
Pat
Yes, you're correct. I found that by law (if it is part of the hiring agreement) anyone "working" for a company/corporation is subject to the corporation if and only if the work is related in anyway to the product of the company/corporation; obviously in a dispute it would have to be resolved under law and that in itself could be a show stopper. For example, if one works for a baker/cooking corporation and subsequently comes up with a recipe for a new type metal alloy for model engines gained from working on the machinery in the plant or an enhanced method for accelerating the growth of balsa trees gained from working in the cooking process it is likely the corporation would have very limited, if any at all, rights to the invention/innovation based on information gained from employment.
On the other hand, Space-X, as a private contractor was able to receive access to nearly all of the research held by NASA as it related to space/manned space flight because it was to a large degree "federal public domain" yet somewhat restricted or classified from ordinary citizens and certain foreign requests which is understandable. I found this out how the process should/could work while working for United Space Alliance on the Kennedy Space Center.
It would be interesting to see just what information one could access related to the turbine propellers, development and disposal data through the government F.O.I.A. (Freedom of Information Act) request process. I bet it would be a load of data, some good and some worthless but still data that had to be compiled due to the government-to-contractor-to-government requirements. The biggest headache would be trying to figure out to which agency/desk to submit the paperwork and how to precisely word the request to acquire the specific information needed.