Government Not Funding Research

[Chuck Connors]

...and we're shaving $600 million off of NASA's budget of $4 bil this year. (I guess the theory is that you've got to economize somewhere... God knows it seems they're not economizing anywhere else.)

$4 billion budget for NASA? WTF? What would happen if we bumped that up to $10 bil/year for the next decade? What would we have at the end of that time?

Just for reference NASA's Budget for 2008 & 2009 is running in the neighborhood of $17 Billion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget

The $600 Million you are talking about is directely related to funding in 2010 for heading back to the Moon during the next decade or so. Also, this money is only on 'hold' pending Obama's review of this specific NASA project. Congress can reinstate this funding later in the year if so chosen.

http://www.space.com/news/090608-nasa-budget.html

[zbarlici]

two-year budget of $17B? talk about gigantor. In comparison, $200M is just some crumbs falling off the table. Would it be all at once or panned out over 5 years? ... anyways, If Polywell fusion pans out NASA would GREATLY benefit from it. Perhaps they should look at redirecting some funds towards the polywell... but then again im sure they know about it , as that crazy long thread "Fusion with space related aspects thread" was at the nasaspace flight forum... geez it took me a good week to go digest that threadtwo years ago when i stumbled across it...

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=5367.0

[JLawson]

Congress can reinstate this funding later in the year if so chosen.

http://www.space.com/news/090608-nasa-budget.html

If so chosen. Softly, silently, the money gets portioned out elsewhere and the original purpose forgotten. There will ALWAYS be something better for it to be spent on, something that will bring in votes on a shorter time-frame, and I believe that's what Congress is looking at. $600 million doesn't even make it up to the pocket change level the way they've been throwing money around - but NASA's an easy and very visible cut to prove they're 'serious' about controlling the outflow.

It's a replay of the '70s. The moon is too far, and too expensive to think about going to again, when there's so much trouble here at home. Funny thing is - you build up the aerospace industry and you get a lot of jobs created all over, from mining for metals, refiners, fabricators, electronics components, suppliers, engineers, construction, assembly... it's a cascade effect, not to mention it would get kids interested (if properly promoted) in careers in the sciences, which would have other cascade effects.

But if you cut it so you can pass the money out as 'benefits' - you get nothing back for the money shoveled out.

And $10 million for Polywell? That doesn't even qualify as pocket lint. Maybe they need to request funding on an ITER scale?

[Betruger]

It's a replay of the '70s. The moon is too far, and too expensive to think about going to again, when there's so much trouble here at home. Funny thing is - you build up the aerospace industry and you get a lot of jobs created all over, from mining for metals, refiners, fabricators, electronics components, suppliers, engineers, construction, assembly... it's a cascade effect, not to mention it would get kids interested (if properly promoted) in careers in the sciences, which would have other cascade effects.

But if you cut it so you can pass the money out as 'benefits' - you get nothing back for the money shoveled out.

And $10 million for Polywell? That doesn't even qualify as pocket lint. Maybe they need to request funding on an ITER scale?

I don't understand how this escapes people.

[JLawson]

I don't understand how this escapes people.

I hate to be waxing political here (though there's some politicians I'd gladly apply hot wax to, right before the tar and feathers) but it's a function of our system.

A politician's most important job is to get relected. After that, anything he might do is secondary. To stay elected, he has to please his constituents.

Money is REAL good for doing that. So they gather as much pork as possible as quickly as possible, and push it out to constituents in a way that THEY feel they benefit.

You WILL get votes if you promise to raise benefits immediately for folks already getting them. You WON'T get those votes if you go "You know, we could spend this money on getting XYZ going, which will bring a good bit of money into the area and everyone will benefit" because those jobs won't show up for a while - and while SOME of your constituents can see beyond the next benefit check, most will vote for your opponent who's promising them free money.

At least, enough people to make sure whoever's promising the most money usually wins.

Don't really see much of a way to change it near-term, either... We've got a populace conditioned to instant gratification - and it takes time to create jobs. Time that we might not have...

[MSimon]

And $10 million for Polywell? That doesn't even qualify as pocket lint. Maybe they need to request funding on an ITER scale?

That really makes me nuts.

I'm pretty sure I could build a continuous operation Polywell for $10 million.

3T Magnets. 1 m dia. 100 KV 25 A power. 8 ft on a side square chamber. Vacuum pumps. A shield bldg plus power supply bldg, plus offices and fab shop. Diagnostic eqpt. Engineering. etc.

[JLawson]

I'm pretty sure I could build a continuous operation Polywell for $10 million.

3T Magnets. 1 m dia. 100 KV 25 A power. 8 ft on a side square chamber. Vacuum pumps. A shield bldg plus power supply bldg, plus offices and fab shop. Diagnostic eqpt. Engineering. etc.

When I win the lottery, you and I are going to have a serious talk...

[jgarry]

The lottery is for people who are bad at math, and if you're haunting this neck of the intertubes, you're probably not that bad at math.

[pfrit]

The lottery is for people who are bad at math, and if you're haunting this neck of the intertubes, you're probably not that bad at math.

I believe that the proper quote is "The lottery: a tax on people who flunked math." Monica Lloyd

[JLawson]

The lottery is for people who are bad at math, and if you're haunting this neck of the intertubes, you're probably not that bad at math.

Maybe that explains why I very rarely buy a ticket - only when the reward (over $200 mil) approaches or exceeds the chance of winning. (1 in 175 mil or so.) And even then, I'm not likely to spend more than a couple of bucks on it. It IS a fools' game after all, and something I've tried hard to impress on my offspring.

But it's got some entertainment value. When it gets up that high, it's more about the fantasies of what you could do with the money than the actual chance of winning. For example - you win $20 mil, you quit your job, buy a nice house and pay it off and set up a fund to pay maintenance and taxes for the next century or so, get a new car, and so on. Maybe spend a couple of weeks at Disney World, do a lot of travelling for a while.

Win $50 to $100 mil, you do the same, and think of some bizzare stuff. Take five years off to walk around the planet? Buy a submarine? Create a luxury underwater habitat? Take a trip to the ISS - twice?

Win $200 mil, and then things really get fun from a technology standpoint. $20 mil to Polywell? Sure! $50 mil to SpaceX, a couple mil to EEStore, talk with Helion and Black Light Power - the possibilities get real interesting.

(And we won't even talk about the high-rise office with nubile secretaries! Or the divorce that would follow!)

[KitemanSA]

At least, enough people to make sure whoever's promising the most money usually wins.

Don't really see much of a way to change it near-term, either... We've got a populace conditioned to instant gratification - and it takes time to create jobs. Time that we might not have...

The only way that I can see to change it near term would be to remove the restrictions on voting. If all folks can do is vote FOR the candidates that bring them money, that is what they will do. If the constituents could vote AGAINST the candidates that foolishly spent their money, perhaps it would stop.

This is called "Full Option Voting".

[Mumbles]

Maybe that explains why I very rarely buy a ticket... And even then, I'm not likely to spend more than a couple of bucks on it. It IS a fools' game after all, and something I've tried hard to impress on my offspring.

But it's got some entertainment value.

I will admit that when the MegaMillions gets up high, I will, at times, spend all of a single dollar to buy a ticket. To me, that $1 is worth the 10-20 minutes of thinking, "What would I do with all that money?!" Because without it, you KNOW you are not winning. With that one ticket, you have a snowball's chance in ... Well, you all know the rest... But it is a chance, and it is sometimes the incentive to dream - dream big...

Be Safe
Mumbles

(I must be tired now, because in 6 weeks I will be "Re-Tired"!)

[vankirkc]

The lottery is for people who are bad at math, and if you're haunting this neck of the intertubes, you're probably not that bad at math.

Maybe that explains why I very rarely buy a ticket - only when the reward (over $200 mil) approaches or exceeds the chance of winning. (1 in 175 mil or so.) And even then, I'm not likely to spend more than a couple of bucks on it. It IS a fools' game after all, and something I've tried hard to impress on my offspring.

But it's got some entertainment value. When it gets up that high, it's more about the fantasies of what you could do with the money than the actual chance of winning. For example - you win $20 mil, you quit your job, buy a nice house and pay it off and set up a fund to pay maintenance and taxes for the next century or so, get a new car, and so on. Maybe spend a couple of weeks at Disney World, do a lot of travelling for a while.

Win $50 to $100 mil, you do the same, and think of some bizzare stuff. Take five years off to walk around the planet? Buy a submarine? Create a luxury underwater habitat? Take a trip to the ISS - twice?

Win $200 mil, and then things really get fun from a technology standpoint. $20 mil to Polywell? Sure! $50 mil to SpaceX, a couple mil to EEStore, talk with Helion and Black Light Power - the possibilities get real interesting.

(And we won't even talk about the high-rise office with nubile secretaries! Or the divorce that would follow!)

I tried to work out the odds for winning the California lottery one time, so that I could set a threshold at which I could justify buying a ticket. I couldn't quite work out the math, though.

Judging just from the number of permutations of the six or seven numbers the odds of getting a match was something like 80 million, which is what they quoted on the odds sheets, but my sticking point was that even getting a match doesn't mean that you take the whole pot. Rather, you split it with however many other people also got the same number..so it is actually worse than 80 million to 1. Anyone know how to model that without knowing how many other people have bought tickets?

I think that little wrinkle makes the expected value of a ticket substantially lower than the odds they are legally required to quote would suggest.

[vankirkc]

You mean regressing science by promoting the theory of Anthropomorphic Global Warming(TM), or pouring money down the known rat hole of fetal stem cell research?

Or insisting tokomaks are our best bet for fusion power?

Yours, TDP, ml, msl, & pfpp

No, like researching to find the point at which science books spontaneously combust or some such. Global warming research will help our understanding of climatology, stem cell research has already cured macular degeneration in rats, and tokamaks yield some interesting products in terms of plasma phyics and materials science. No venture into explaining the unknown is completely fruitless.

The rats must have been well pleased about that!

[vankirkc]

Adult stem cell research is showing much more progress than embryonic, and although the tokamaks may be fun toys for the physicists to play with, the original concept behind them was for something that actually produced power for the masses, not jobs for PhDs.

Eight years of investment in one and not the other tends to have effects like that.

$4 billion budget for NASA? WTF? What would happen if we bumped that up to $10 bil/year for the next decade? What would we have at the end of that time? How many jobs would be created nationwide to support the endeavors, how much advancement would we have in the physical sciences? How many spinoffs would we see in the private sector? Heck, just have NASA hand out matching grants to the public sector for space research - I'm thinking we'd see both a massive increase in the space sciences AND achievements, AND more kids thinking engineering is an exciting, progressive career path.

If you're looking to stimulate job growth then energy technology is a better investment than space technology, I would think. We need it more.

As for the investment in Polywell technology, I think they're doing what they can under the circumstances. There are peer reviewed papers out there saying this particular idea won't work, can't work, and even here amongst the fans there isn't a consensus that the technology is viable. I can't see anyone staking their career on a proposition with so many obvious and prominent red flags. I think that until experimental data refutes that paper and opens the door for the theorists, you're only going to see chump change investments in the technology.

I think we can all agree that we don't want another Tokamak boondoggle.