Government funded innovation

It's interesting how many innovative gadgets began life in a military laboratory. GPS and the Internet are obvious examples, but the T-Shirt? This wired article touches on many well-known gadgets whose roots were in the military. Often, as is the case with innovation, these gadgets were invented for purposes entirely different than what they are used for today. What's more innovative: inventing a new way to track satellites, or realizing that the tracking technology has commercial navigational purposes (GPS)? Each of these innovations show that innovators aren't necessarily inventors-sometimes they just make good things great.