mmotyka@lsil.com wrote:

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"James B. DiGriz" <jbdigriz@dragonsweb.org> wrote :

<snip> Declan's note about ADM hogs at the trough with lots of other hogs...

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A far more productive application of corporate welfare would be if that money were spent on engineering research and development of geosynchronous solar power microwave relays, fusion and advanced fission reactors, permanent manned statons on the Moon, Mars, asteroids, etc. The planet and its politics would likely be a lot cleaner. Just one beneficial side effect.

Just wait until some orbiting uwave controller goes bonserk and boils a slice of America from DC to San Franciso. Oops.

Power density in the proposed systems has been at least nominally low enough you could safely graze cattle in the beam. This ain't a Star Wars death-ray. Not even close.

How about picking some of the low-hanging fruit first?

Believe it or not, I'm actively considering an ethanol project. Wasn't suggesting such things were not worthwhile. Not by a long shot. How far along do you think the emerging fuel-cell technologies would be without the space program, though?

Start with greed and waste and work your way up to the Buck Rogers stuff.

Jeez, maybe we can eliminate crime, win the War on Drugs, and wipe out stupidity, too.

After all, if we can't get the simple shit right what hope is there that we can handle anything that requires brains and responsibility?

We had the Buck Rogers stuff 30 years ago, dropped the ball, and have been resting on our laurels and for the most part have been wasting a singular historic opportunity ever since. Wait any longer, and it could be too late. Might already be. They want to whittle down the already whittled down ISS, more unmanned planetary scientific missions canceled. the Superconducting Collider canceled, fusion research whittled down and stretched out past mid-century, hardly any new reactor designs production tested in decades, etc. etc. etc. Whatever happened to gaseous fission rocket motors, for instance?

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If govts. didn't insist on scarfing up so much in taxes and thwarting markets at the behest of vested interests, private parties probably would already be doing most of this by now.

But what else is new?

jbdigriz

Until there is a crisis nothing will be done. It will require widely accepted evidence of a problem ( read : widespread domestic starvation ) before action will be taken and then the only parties in a position to take that action will be those same private parties ( the dreaded vested interests ) that you complain about.

By that time it will be way too late. Plenty enough crisis right now to spur constructive developments. In case you haven't noticed, there are a few new players in the game, too.

I think that our technology is one of our greatest strengths and our faith in that technology is one of our greatest weaknesses. We avoid basic remedies in the hopes that techology will offer some sort of ultimate cure that will not inconvenience us one bit and the net result is that we raise the stakes unnecessarily.

I started a comment on this, but then I scrolled down and saw you admit to being a closet Luddite.

Am I wrong or doesn't there seem to be an implicit assumption in our *SOVSUV-mad rush to consume petroleum that technology has the solution to a shortage just about ready to roll when the need arises? Myself, I highly doubt it in spite of Bush's reassuring words that "there are no limits" to what technology can accomplish.

Sorry, I don't commute to work in an F350 King Cab Dualie, Mike ( pessimistic techie and closet Luddite )

Hey, walking is cheap. :-)

*SOV - Single Occupancy Vehicle as opposed to HOV

SOV is not my own - thanks to DB in Madison.

jbdigriz