Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Nick Szabo Disinformation debunking (Re: Clinton and Space Funding)
From: wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 03:07:00 GMT
Organization: University of Houston
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <1992Sep27.001600.22606@techbook.com>, szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes...
>In article <1992Sep23.184518.25122@medtron.medtronic.com> rn11195@sage (Robert Nehls) writes:
> 
>>Like it or not, the two main technology drivers for the
>>last 5 decades have been first the military and then the space program.
> 
>Whether we like it or not, it's probably not true.  Most of the patents,
>and most of the important inventions like transistors and genetic
>engineering, have come outside the sphere of these programs.
> 
>>Billions of dollars have been cut from the defense budget.  Where has this
>>money gone?  No one talks about that.  
> 
>Most of it has gone into medical care subsidies.  Unfortuneately most
>of that is for paperwork, not advancing medical technology.  There
>have also been big increases at HUD, EPA, and Education.  These easily
>dwarf the savings from defense, which is only a small fraction of
>the budget these days.  Bush and the current Congress are the most
>profligate spenders since World War II, and they're not doing anything
>as important as fighting Nazis.
> 
>>[Japan's success came at end of Cold War].
> 
>Not true.  Japan has been growing faster than U.S. economically
>since World War II, because the U.S. was taking more money out of 
>the private sector and spending it on the Cold War.  Japan spends 
>much more of its R&D funds in the private sector than the U.S., and 
>most of its public-sector projects have failed just like ours
>have here (shuttle, Clinch River breeder reactor, fusion program,
>synfuels, etc. all failed to produce as promised -- public R&D
>has an incredibly dismal record!)   Since the end of the Cold War, 
>Japan's stock market has crashed, in anticipation of a flux of talent 
>and money into the U.S. private sector giving us a trade advantage.  
>If we put that money into commercially useless projects like space 
>stations and Apollo reruns, we will lose that advantage.  If we
>put it into commercially important areas like comsats and the airline
>industry, as well as judicious amounts into long-term exploration
>and research, we are much more likely to gain competitiveness.
> 
> 
Geez Nick

1. Shuttle is not a failure 49 out of 50 ain't bad.  Look to Congress and
Cap Wineburger for the high operational costs of the shuttle.

2. Clinch River Breeder.  Congress cut the money due to Three Mile Island and
the anti-nuclear hysteria.

3.  Synfuels.  Jimmy Carter's idea to destroy mountains in the west for 
shale oil.  Would have been so toxic to the environment that even the
oil companies did not want to deal with it.  Bad idea pushed by so called 
environmentalist President (can you name his latter day descendant?) Of Gore
you can.

4. Fusion.  Still the best long term solution to both terrestrial energy 
needs and intra-solar system propulsion systems.  No failures in the technology
just failure of will in Congress to fund this needed technology.

Sorry Nick to keep doing this but as I have written him in personal mail, we
look at the same evidence and most of the time come up with the opposite 
conclusions.  Only history will prove which is right.  

When Government R&D has been given a specific, concrete goal and has been 
given the resources to carry it out, (Early American canal system, Railroads,
Panama canal, WWII, A bombs, H Bombs, Apollo) it has been wildly successful.
The common denomonator in the above so called failures is a lack of will and
lack of vision (sense of purpose) in carrying the effort to its finish.

Where government has been a dismal failure is in pursing general goals using
the specific goal approach, (war on poverty, Great Society, Welfare system,
income redistribution,)  This was very well laid out in the book " Heavens and
the Earth".

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville

Newsgroups: sci.space