THEN she said "How's it hanging, Big Boy?" ;)

Yeah. Gravity wells suck.:D

Correct, I agree with all you have said, but now to the last point. Should the Gov't be funding anything not of tangible and direct benefit? Well, yes and no. Funding of fields related to energy, defense, agriculture, medicine would be a good idea. There are so many myths concerning "breakthroughs" that could save humanity, etc. that are quietly bought up to preserve the status quo, that part of me wants some research being done divorced from the profit motive. An example would be "cold fusion" Probably science fiction but if it actually is possible a private firm figuring it out would make them fantastically wealthy and benefit society little regarding decrease in energy costs. Granted, this starts begging the question, what exactly is "pure science" again? I know that lots of ideas come out of the defense/DARPA type programs and find their way into all sorts of other applications. Its hard to put a label on it, that we can agree on. RT

Here's a thought without getting too deep into the matter, right now China's elected President tolerates the US what will happen if the inevitable new leader has a mindset like Hugo Chavez?

In no sense am I certain of my opinion concerning gov funded basic research.

there are some areas of science where gov involvement is just about the only way to garner wide acceptance of results. Like energy, for example. Or pollution. Nobody trusts private companies to do this kind of work and I doubt that anybody would trust most NGO's for the exact same reason but opposite perspective. So if we can't trust Mobile EXXOn and can't trust Greenpeace, what is left?

In my estimation, when gov does a pretty job of science on these controversial subjects can be determined by how widespread the condemnations are. If they are one-sided then I sniff for bias. If everybody likes it then I sniff for incompetence. But if Greenpeace and EXXOn both hate it, the science probably ain't bad.

Then there's the DARPA/intelligence community type research. In this instance we may wish to have draconian control over who has access to the knowledge. This is anathema to good science, but some shyte is just too dangerous to become widely known.

The way we fund a lot of fed research is freaking stupid. Some university president talks to some congressman about needing some new widgets and a building so congressman lowbrow line-items research for widgets into the budget and specifies it must be done by this or that university. That's historically how Ivy's got major tax dollars. Land grants figured in out eventually and so they got on the grub line, too. Then the university names a building after congressman lowbrow's greatest contributor.

Your tax dollars at work.

B

The Chinese probably aren't that stupid. The have experienced the poisoned fruit's of real communism and decided to dump it and join the real world. In that they need the US more than the US needs them. Essentially their economy is dependent on the US market, even in it's screwed state.

- Peter.

I don't think your wrong and do agree with you to an extent but I think that intertwining too much military type tech with a country like China is not worth the risk with such little benefits they have already demonstrated their will to steal out technology so why would we give it to them?

Not to mention their cyber assaults.

Not to mention knocking out planes out the air, planting spies in our military, planting spies in our most secret laboratories...with friends like that who needs friends?