Apollo and the Zheng He expeditions were both spectacular dead ends. "It is by practical efforts ... not by glorious bureaucratic white elephants, that the successful pioneers will, in good time, explore and develop the solar system."
https://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-succeed-or-fail-on-frontier.html …
#Apollo50
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Neither made any money.
The Zheng He mission both distributed gifts and collected tribute -- I'm not sure which was more, and I suspect the net even if positive fell far short of recouping the extraordinary costs. Timber on the Chinese coast was scarce.
