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The only "moonshot" projects which ever worked were military ones. Ie, moon landing, the Manhattan project, etc. In these situations you have a state which can

The only "moonshot" projects which ever worked were military ones. Ie, moon landing, the Manhattan project, etc. In these situations you have a state which can throw virtually unlimited resources at a project (even if it fails! see Star Wars and many other failed military "moonshot" projects) because it poses an existential threat for your opponent to develop it first. Of course, if the technology turns out to be impossible, then it's no big deal, because your rivals can't benefit from it either (in fact this was one of the main motivators for the Manhattan project - to see if it could be done, and make sure the Allies got there first if it could).

beerandt 7y ago
While I don't necessarily disagree about SDI being a overall failure, we did get our current missle defence program and technology directly from the program. SDI also funded a vast amount of scientific research, although I don't know of any specific success stories to result. Regardless, I wouldn't classify it as a textbook example of a moonshot failure.
willis936 7y ago
Many are of the mind that a crash program like the Manhattan Project is exactly what fusion needs in order to actually be “30 years away”.
- credit_guy 7y ago
  On the other hand many are of the mind that the progress in fusion was quite fast paced, due to competition, until many nations decided to join forces and invest in ITER. After which it pretty much stalled. ITER was supposed to be the Manhattan Project of fusion ( * ). So there's that. Here's Robert Zubrin in "The Case for Space": "The national fusion programs progressed well during the Cold War because of fierce international competition. They have stopped moving forward since the late 1980s because the decision to consolidate them into a single global project, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), removed all stimulus for action. Indeed, it took nearly a quarter century for the bureaucrats in charge of ITER to manage to reach consensus in 2010 on where to put it, and it will take another quarter century before the machine even attempts to reach thermonuclear ignition in 2035." ( * ) Cost comparison: Manhattan Project $23BN in 2018 dollars [1]. ITER cost, construction only: $22BN as per their own estimate, $65BN as per the US Department of Energy estimate [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project [2] https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.2.20180416a/full/ https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.2.2018041...
  - willis936 7y ago
    How can a project that received $23 billion over 5 years be considered equivalent to a project that received the same amount of money over 30 years? Had the $23 billion been shelled out in 1991 we would have had break even fusion before Y2k. Quite frankly, controlled thermonuclear fusion is far more difficult than splitting an atom. It would be a shock if the same amount of funding would accomplish the equivalent goal. Next I’ll be told about pitfalls and hazards and biases around such a statement. People are scared of a real solution costing money.
    - credit_guy 7y ago
      > Quite frankly, controlled thermonuclear fusion is far more difficult than splitting an atom. Well, that's exactly the reason a Manhattan Project of Apollo Program style of push was inappropriate. Those two projects were fundamentally easy problems. By the time they were green-lighted, all their underlying physics was understood, and the only remaining challenges were engineering ones. In the case of fusion, that was not the case in 1991 (the year you picked) by any means.
  - pfdietz 7y ago
    The Manhattan Program delivered a militarily useful weapon. ITER will not deliver a commercially useful reactor. The resulting device will be a physics experiment, not something that can be used to produce useful power.

beerandt 7y ago

While I don't necessarily disagree about SDI being a overall failure, we did get our current missle defence program and technology directly from the program. SDI also funded a vast amount of scientific research, although I don't know of any specific success stories to result. Regardless, I wouldn't classify it as a textbook example of a moonshot failure.

willis936 7y ago

Many are of the mind that a crash program like the Manhattan Project is exactly what fusion needs in order to actually be “30 years away”.

credit_guy 7y ago
On the other hand many are of the mind that the progress in fusion was quite fast paced, due to competition, until many nations decided to join forces and invest in ITER. After which it pretty much stalled. ITER was supposed to be the Manhattan Project of fusion ( * ). So there's that. Here's Robert Zubrin in "The Case for Space": "The national fusion programs progressed well during the Cold War because of fierce international competition. They have stopped moving forward since the late 1980s because the decision to consolidate them into a single global project, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), removed all stimulus for action. Indeed, it took nearly a quarter century for the bureaucrats in charge of ITER to manage to reach consensus in 2010 on where to put it, and it will take another quarter century before the machine even attempts to reach thermonuclear ignition in 2035." ( * ) Cost comparison: Manhattan Project $23BN in 2018 dollars [1]. ITER cost, construction only: $22BN as per their own estimate, $65BN as per the US Department of Energy estimate [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project [2] https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.2.20180416a/full/ https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.2.2018041...
- willis936 7y ago
  How can a project that received $23 billion over 5 years be considered equivalent to a project that received the same amount of money over 30 years? Had the $23 billion been shelled out in 1991 we would have had break even fusion before Y2k. Quite frankly, controlled thermonuclear fusion is far more difficult than splitting an atom. It would be a shock if the same amount of funding would accomplish the equivalent goal. Next I’ll be told about pitfalls and hazards and biases around such a statement. People are scared of a real solution costing money.
  - credit_guy 7y ago
    > Quite frankly, controlled thermonuclear fusion is far more difficult than splitting an atom. Well, that's exactly the reason a Manhattan Project of Apollo Program style of push was inappropriate. Those two projects were fundamentally easy problems. By the time they were green-lighted, all their underlying physics was understood, and the only remaining challenges were engineering ones. In the case of fusion, that was not the case in 1991 (the year you picked) by any means.
- pfdietz 7y ago
  The Manhattan Program delivered a militarily useful weapon. ITER will not deliver a commercially useful reactor. The resulting device will be a physics experiment, not something that can be used to produce useful power.