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Notes -
It's not hugely discussed because it's not particularly controversial, to the point that it's like water that the fish swimming through don't recognize.
The 'issue' is that many scientific developments with military applications aren't actually all-that visible, being more about integration of capabilities than distinct form. A 'post-sputnik space effort' is visually impressive when there are no space rockets. A re-usable space-launch rocket is not visually all that distinct from a non-reusable one, and only (greatly) expands the amount of material moved into space, rather than introducing first-of-its-kind capabilities.
Another issue is that a lot of significantly advancing technology is also a lot more democratized, with periods of sole-state advantage being shorter than ever before. Thirty years ago, GPS-guided weapons and real-time tracking of forces was an unprecedented technological advantage that allowed the Gulf War US to slice through one of the largest Soviet-style armies in the world to an unprecedented degree. Now you have the same technological capability in your pocket, in some cases provided by the same companies putting satellites into orbit rather than the states that once had a monopoly on doing that. What isn't invented can still be replicated, often for a fraction of the cost.
That doesn't mean that the technology -> military loops isn't occuring, or having strategic payoffs. After being the target of proxy war for the better part of two decades, the US is arguably waging one of the most effective proxy wars in human history, in large part because of the technologies it has developed and deployed in favor of it's backed party while using lessons from the previous conflicts. The advent of drone warfare is a revolution in military affairs which will be a great weakness to all major military powers by greatly increasing the costs when operating in hostile terrain- but effect the US less due to the US's geographic and alliance contexts. This is far more relevant and impressive on a strategic level than, say, a carrier-killing ballistic missile, a weapon with only about 50 applicable targets in the world.
But drones aren't sexy a decade after the Iraq War, and a carrier-killing missile is whoosh.
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