> The goal of government-funded research is not to run a business, directing research into immediate commercialization, it is to do basic science Sez you. Basi

> The goal of government-funded research is not to run a business, directing research into immediate commercialization, it is to do basic science Sez you. Basic science/pure research is NOT the goal of all government research spending. There happens to be some funding put in place for basic research by Congress (much of the NSF and NIH budgets, for instance) but there is also purpose-driven research that is not "basic science." The department of defense is one of the largest spenders on research in the US government, but much of their research is not "basic science," and even if you termed it that, they are not doing it for the love of knowledge. I assume the NSA is more like this than it is like the NSF.