[daveswilson]

The government could also simply pay for the whole deal, from the design of production facilities to their eventual removal, and tack on a nice profit for the vendor. That's called "cost plus" and with the appropriate performance bonuses, other incentives, and some redundancy would probably solve.

We've demonstrated this repeatedly with military spending and NASA contracts. It doesn't always go well but if made sufficiently lucrative and performance-based (think wartime footing), with appropriate oversight, it certainly can get results.

We just don't have leadership at the moment, it seems, that has the intellectual capacity to consider these levers and pull them.