I answered it, in the thread you ended up not returning to.
"How the mighty have fallen indeed. Let's try to explain this in simple sentences then:
It doesn't balloon anything. No idea how you got that.
Real satellites and projects cost lots of money in materials and man-hours (if we take NASA's budget as actual evidence). On a flat Earth, space exploration and such would cost even more (given the obvious issues).
However, real exploration, projects and satellites would not occur or exist in FE, allowing the conspiracy to take the unused expenditure as profit. You know, the whole idea behind the motive."
Like I said, I like how it makes no sense to make lots of money doing very little, vs. making significantly less money doing a lot.