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{Politics.772.3}: Brian Bixby {cusco} Sun, 27 Jan 2008 12:04:57 EST (27 lines)

"What are your opinions concerning what America would be like if they
were redirected toward productive rather than parasitic goals?" - Barry

We already have an example of this.  Essentially the answer is 'The
government makes money'.  In 1977 Gerard O'Neil had his classes
examine the financial impact on the US economy of the Moon missions.
In the way of college classes, the scope had to be fairly limited.  To
the surprise of everyone, including O'Neil, they found that the
increased revenue from just the the communications and computing
fields would have raised enough taxes to pay for the whole program,
Redstone to Apollo, by 1979.

Think about that for a moment.  What percentage of our economy was
involved in those two fields in 1977?  A wee bit less than today, I'd
guess.  Now add materials science, weather observation and forecasting
(imagine Katrina if New Orleans hadn't had most of a week's warning),
computer assisted design, and the truly revolutionary Zero Defect
Manufacturing concept.  Computer simulations, photography, telemetry,
remote sensors, cryogenics, fluid flow dynamics, high speed pumps and
motors, all made enormous strides almost overnight.  And almost all of
this went immediately back into the economy in the form of consumer
and industrial products.

Contrast that with military development.  If Lockheed develops a new
material resistant to heat and stresses while working on a replacement
for the Blackbird that research is classified and can only be used to
build new war toys, essentially forever.

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