[m0zg]

See Moon landings and the Manhattan project for an example of what unlimited budget and the best brains were able to accomplish in this country between the 40s and 70s. Then it all went way downhill precisely because of this kind of reasoning, utter lack of vision and ambition, and mismanagement. And even if this were an utter and complete failure in the end, it'd have generated priceless knowledge, and hundreds of thousands of Middle Eastern civilians would be alive. No matter how you slice it, this would have been a _way_ better way to spend taxpayer money.

That's if it were a failure. If it were a success, we'd end global warming, attach a ginormous rocket booster to the world's economy without dooming the planet, kick the stool from underneath several authoritarian/theocratic regimes, and who knows what else.

[wolverine876]

Those were intelligently chosen projects; many more were no doubt rejected. Just throwing money at things doesn't work; beyond the obvious cost, there also is opportunity cost: it takes money from other valuable investments.

What makes you say that management and vision declined? NASA does incredible things, as does NIH, NSF, etc.

> this would have been a _way_ better way to spend taxpayer money.

In order to do research, you need freedom, and political and economic stability, and those require militaries - not solely or most importantly, but necessarily. Sometimes militaries will be misused or used inefficiently, but there is no option to just spend all the money elsewhere.

[delecti]

> Those were intelligently chosen projects; many more were no doubt rejected

It's comparatively easy to say that with hindsight. There was about as much reason in 1940 to predict that making a nuclear bomb was feasible with enough resources as there is today to think the same about fusion power generation. Both started from the standpoint of "theoretically possible, but levels and levels of unknown engineering challenges."

[leephillips]

There is a fundamental difference between the two—a difference that meant we knew we could probably build a fission bomb, and, later, fission reactors, but that controlled fusion is and will always be impractical. Nuclear fusion happens spontaneously in nature. The problem is keeping it from happening, and controlling the process. During the Manhattan project there were tragic events were fisson happened accidentally. Fusion is different because you must actively maintain conditions that nature is trying to disrupt.

[unsung]

> Nuclear fusion happens spontaneously in nature.

True, but you mean fission :)

[leephillips]

Dang it. Yes, I did. Thank you.

[wolverine876]

> It's comparatively easy to say that with hindsight.

Yes, and I omitted an essential factor: All the funded projects that failed and are mostly forgotten.

> There was about as much reason in 1940 to predict that making a nuclear bomb was feasible with enough resources as there is today to think the same about fusion power generation.

My impression is that it was believed to be a very likely project, and mostly a race with the Nazis. An excerpt from Einstein's letter to FDR, credited with kicking off the project:

In the course of the last four months it has been made probable—through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard in America—that it may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future.

This phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable—though much less certain—that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed.

https://www.atomicheritage.org/key-documents/einstein-szilar...

[leephillips]

This is a fantastic comment. Mainly because you said what I was thinking of saying but couldn’t muster the energy.

[leephillips]

There might have been a choice even better than war or a doomed fusion program: we could have spent the money on improving infrastructure, healthcare, education....