I don't know much about Solyndra. But you are right that people getting the money for research need to be honest and motivated. In my opinion, this applies to m

I don't know much about Solyndra. But you are right that people getting the money for research need to be honest and motivated. In my opinion, this applies to most people working in science. It is just that research is hard (and possibly getting even harder [1],[2]) and motivation alone is not enough. If you have a "serious problem" to solve, you will most probably need to throw tons of money and people at it. [1] http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2011/02/07/the-difficulty-of-making-new-discoveries/# http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2011/02/07/the-difficulty-... [2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/6694932/Have-we-discovered-it-all.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/6694932/Have-we-discovere...