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> They've been put in place when the US is arguably more dependent upon science and technology than at any time since World War II. I could say the US is argu
by joshuahedlund 14y ago
> They've been put in place when the US is arguably more dependent upon science and technology than at any time since World War II.
I could say the US is arguably less dependent upon the government's role in science and technology than at any time since World War II. I honestly don't know if that's true, but it would at least be an interesting discussion (I'm thinking of the transitioning privatization of space exploration, for starters); I don't see that it's clearly obvious either way.
- _delirium 14y agoI think operationally this is getting more true, but not as much funding-wise, so intelligent control over appropriations is still important. For example, SpaceX is a private company, but largely publicly financed: government contracts provide the majority of their revenue, since they don't yet have significant private-sector clients. If their NASA contract were cancelled (e.g. because a committee cut that program), they wouldn't be solvent as a company. Also common in the private-sector research world, outside a few big places like MSR that are mainly privately funded. A lot of biotech companies depend on public/private NIH research grants, and the SBIR/STTR programs are also a big source of funds for riskier research in small companies (http://www.sbir.gov/ http://www.sbir.gov/).
- cheeseprocedure 14y agoIt would be very interesting to see some data on the impact of government-funded blue-sky research (in other words, science that didn't have an obvious short-term commercial application). Intuitively, it seems like such spending would open up new commercial frontiers for the private sector, but I'm not personally aware of specific examples of net payoff.