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This raises an interesting question - what kinds of textbooks are out there already, produced by the government/military, and available for use? Could they be

This raises an interesting question - what kinds of textbooks are out there already, produced by the government/military, and available for use? Could they be expanded/adapted, published for free, and put downward pressure on the (ludicrous) price of textbooks in the US?

xjwm 10y ago
NASA has an e-book collection on their site: https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/ https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/
Bud 10y ago
This makes a couple assumptions: 1) There's not much legitimate value in the textbooks we have now. Those who did that work don't really deserve to make money from it, and their labor would be easy to replace. 2) It'd be free or essentially free to "expand and adapt" military documents and make them into textbooks that are accurate, current, and suitable for educating non-military folks.
- analognoise 10y ago
  1) How did you get from "downward pressure" to "not much legitimate value"? The original statement was nuanced enough to cover this and definitely didn't make that assumption. 2) You're right, no such project has ever existed; I'd imagine it would be like an encyclopedia, full of people who donate their time to edit page about various subjects. Such a project could never stay current, definitely isn't suitable for education, and almost certainly will never surpass the accuracy or magnitude of my Microsoft Encarta CDs. [0] [0] https://www.wikipedia.org/ https://www.wikipedia.org/
metaphor 10y ago
Lots of military handbooks out there available to the public...612 records to be exact: do a Document ID search for MIL-HDBK using DLA's dot-mil-official search tool[1]. Roughly half are still active. [1] http://quicksearch.dla.mil/ http://quicksearch.dla.mil/
cocoablazing 10y ago
The NNPP doesn't distribute any high quality theoretical nuclear engineering texts. The good texts they use are targeted towards the specific systems and materials deployed on ships and submarines.

xjwm 10y ago

NASA has an e-book collection on their site: https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/ https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/

Bud 10y ago

This makes a couple assumptions: 1) There's not much legitimate value in the textbooks we have now. Those who did that work don't really deserve to make money from it, and their labor would be easy to replace. 2) It'd be free or essentially free to "expand and adapt" military documents and make them into textbooks that are accurate, current, and suitable for educating non-military folks.

analognoise 10y ago
1) How did you get from "downward pressure" to "not much legitimate value"? The original statement was nuanced enough to cover this and definitely didn't make that assumption. 2) You're right, no such project has ever existed; I'd imagine it would be like an encyclopedia, full of people who donate their time to edit page about various subjects. Such a project could never stay current, definitely isn't suitable for education, and almost certainly will never surpass the accuracy or magnitude of my Microsoft Encarta CDs. [0] [0] https://www.wikipedia.org/ https://www.wikipedia.org/

metaphor 10y ago

Lots of military handbooks out there available to the public...612 records to be exact: do a Document ID search for MIL-HDBK using DLA's dot-mil-official search tool[1]. Roughly half are still active. [1] http://quicksearch.dla.mil/ http://quicksearch.dla.mil/

cocoablazing 10y ago

The NNPP doesn't distribute any high quality theoretical nuclear engineering texts. The good texts they use are targeted towards the specific systems and materials deployed on ships and submarines.