Speaking of the conspiracy...
I think we may have been going about it wrong.
We claim that the primary motive for it is money... but what if it's not?
WW2: The Government built bomb shelters in many areas... but only to protect a selected segment of the people.
During the Cold War, they did the same thing.
All of the end time scenarios that the governments is based on they can't save everyone.
So, if space flight is not possible, that means that the human race is stuck on this planet, no matter what, correct?
The government looks at that and then looks at rising population counts. Even China, with its draconian birth control policy, is rapidly running out of room.
In three to four more generations, the earth's resources will no longer be able to handle the human population without a very significant breakthrough or some form of relief.
When a population gets too big, ways are found to relief the stress. War, Famine, Plague, whatever.
The Conspiracy people are planning ahead, using the funds from the Conspiracy to built secret havens, places to protect the percentage of the people that they think should be saved.
(It's only a hypothesis right now, but that is the way many people in the government think, which I can prove.)
So... is it a possibility?