[WalterBright]

The first flying jet aircraft was before WW2, the Heinkel He178 on August 27, 1939.

The first freeway network was in Germany before WW2.

Before the internet gained popularity, about everyone with more than one computer tried to connect them together. There were quite a proliferation of networks before the internet subsumed them all (after all, even the term "inter" net was derived from connecting disparate networks together, not computers). There was BIX, FidoNet, Compuserve, Prodigy, MCINet, just to name a few off the top of my head. Some students at Caltech in the 70's built their own ad-hoc network when I was there.

While the other networks have all been forgotten today, to suggest that without the ARPAnet networks wouldn't have happened is without foundation.

[vacri]

... you do know that germany was heavily militarising for years before WWII started on 1 Sep 1939, including heavy spending on military R&D?

Germany didn't just say "hey, first ever flight by a jet aircraft! let's celebrate by, I dunno, invading Poland in four days' time!"

[WalterBright]

The jet powered Heinkel was built with Ernst Heinkel's private funds, not government funds.

[vacri]

And I'm sure that Heinkel was so puritanical about the jet engine not being used for military purposes that he refused to consider the substantial profits he might make from using them in the multitude of bombers he was already making for the Luftwaffe, nor that he might be able to create a competitive fighter design (given that he'd lost out on that side). I'm sure his research was not at all motivated by the possibility of future government coin.

[WalterBright]

Of course Heinkel wanted to sell the jet to the government. But the fact remains that jet engines and jet aircraft were not developed with government research & development contract money.

Neither the US, British, nor German governments wanted anything to do with funding jet research until they saw flying jet airplanes.

Jet aircraft are a poor example of foresighted government research.

[vacri]

How did we get onto government money? No-one was talking about government funding until your second-last comment. You were saying that the first jet engine was tested before WW2. I said 'sure, four days before WW2, but nevertheless was significantly influenced by the events directly leading up to WW2'. Not sure why it matters whether the money was public or private.

[ramanujan]

Hmmm. My point is that innovation speeds up dramatically during wars, in part because the involvement of dot.mil organizations can supersede the regulations imposed by dot.govs.

Taking your points in turn:

1. August 1939 in Nazi Germany wasn't exactly peacetime :) They were already planning to invade Poland. I believe it's pretty well established that aircraft development slowed between the wars but really got underway again with WW2 and then the Korean War.

http://www.ww2pacific.com/jethist.html

2. The Autobahn was arguably a peacetime development (though very useful for war), but it's inarguable that the US Interstate Highway System was developed for defense purposes.

3. Would computer networking have happened in some fashion? Probably, but DARPA saw it as a national security issue and cut through various kinds of red tape. Fiber could be laid across huge swaths of the country without environmental impact statements or FCC involvement. It's hard to say what would have happened without sponsorship from one part of the government.

[WalterBright]

1. Heinkel's jet airplane development was not funded by the government, as the Nazi government saw no military purpose to jet aircraft. They only got interested after it was flying.

2. Both the German autobahn system and the US interstates were partially justified by military use, and both were done in peacetime.

3. Computer networking did happen independently from the ARPAnet, and it did cover the entire country, both with dedicated lines and piggybacking over the phone lines. All the networks I mentioned were national (and even international) in reach. Everyone with more than one computer wanted to connect them together.

[WalterBright]

I should add that in Great Britain as well, the government did not begin funding of jet engines nor jet aircraft until after government officials saw flying jet aircraft.

In America during WW2, the government told Lockheed to halt their dev work on jet engines and concentrate on piston engines. Flying jet aircraft (from GB and Germany) again changed their mind.