I know of three, actually two. Cosmos 1 and its descendants are an attempt to suss out the practicality of solar sails, ostensibly with an eye to interstellar exploration. However, they're barely out of proof-of-concept. Yuri Milner's folly is a laser-boosted constellation of lightsails. DARPA's 100-year starship is more PR project than engineering project. The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society had this hanging up in their clubhouse. I tried to cajole them into letting me scan it for two solid years. Eventually I gave up, but kept hounding the Internet. Eventually someone else managed to scan someone else's copy and now it's freely available to everyone. I got it printed up full size and mounted and gave it as a housewarming gift. It's impressive. It's also outsider art. When you start talking about "multi-generational" and "government planning" you start seeing some real shortfalls in vision and sanity. We are not a pyramid-building people any longer.
This is kinda what I was thinking... I imagined highly-skilled high school students being recruited for specific learning programs at Stanford (for example), with the intent of them eventually going to work for Lockheed/SpaceX/NASA/whoever, in a specific role, with a specific set of skills. (The pro sports model, but for science.) Which feels really Chinese/communist, but also, really cool in some way... I mean, what kid doesn't want to grow up to be an astronaut, right? But it is also clearly high risk. What if the kid gets hit by a bus? Or decides to become a glass-blower artist in Laguna Beach? Or...? But... we are no longer pyramid-building people... yeah... When you start talking about "multi-generational" and "government planning" you start seeing some real shortfalls in vision and sanity. We are not a pyramid-building people any longer.
I don't think it's a bad thing. Major public works projects in the ancient world were conducted at the behest of a hereditary dynasty. And thing is? They aren't that common, either. Giza took 10-20 years. The big European castles were works-in-progress depending on who was living there and how long they'd been. Chartres only took 26 years. Yeah the Great Wall was a 2000 year process but one of the tenets of Confucianism is "don't rock the boat, the past is fine, progress is an affront to God" and if the Chinese hadn't valued stability over literally everything else they probably would have landed on the moon about 400AD. The thing about a project that happens in your lifetime? It edifies your life. Look at this guy. Mutherfucker was eight years old, hiding from the Nazis. Made it to the US, went to school, started doing secret shit straight out of college and was seventy fucking four years old before he could even tell anybody what he was doing. That's delayed gratification but I bet that if you'd told him at 21 that his grandchildren would eventually get to reap the bounty of the shit he was doing? Yeah, he'd have done it... but I'll bet it'd be a damn sight harder.