So if YOU couldn't convince 'em to invest, then NOBODY could, huh? Wow, that's some ego you're sportin' there...

>>>it is hard enough getting them interested in devoting their people and rescources if you guarentee payment- there is NO WAY they would do it just on the chance that they may win a prize...<<<

You base this grandiose statement on potentially valuable empirical data derived from your own experiences. Without knowing what trees you barked up, or what eskimo pies you were trying to peddle, it's difficult for me to evaluate the experiences though. I can say, however, that there are those who are persuasive in the world and you may or may not be one of them. Prior to today, I don't know that I ever saw a single rational post from you so it's difficult for me to assess.

I think you misunderstood my previous comment, however. The WAY in which you get your government subsidies is what I object to, NOT the fact that such government subsidies exist. If I had MY way, we'd be spending a LOT more on space-related projects than we currently are. But most of it would be used for offering competitive prizes. Those prizes' goals would likely be determined democratically, sort of like we (hopefully) did at the very recent NASA Centennial Challenges event. Thus, we'd be likely to see far less arrogant and elitist wastefulness ("my pork don't stink") that's thinly veiled by the "excuse" that "research is what we're doing when we don't know what we're doing." I'm all for directionless research if it's potentially valuable, but some of the "work" that gets funded out there is pork, plain and simple. Neither the goals nor the means of achieving them could withstand truly democratic scrutiny. Now that we finally have campaign finance reform AND cyberspace, we're seeing the traditionally corrupt governmental procurement methods of yesteryear get discarded along with out-houses and nondigital telephones. More reform is needed but I do NOT favor cutting funding for truly valuable research that almost nobody will pursue even if they're guaranteed payment for it. However, one of us has worked directly in federal government procurement and funding endeavors and it's the one who is preaching competitive prizes almost as much as the crew behind the X Prize or so many others that are popping up. There's a Grand Challenge-style robotics roadrace around the corner by the way. It's PRIVATELY funded and could be interesting.

You might have a legitimate point about how some research wouldn't get pursued almost even if funding was guaranteed, let alone if merely a prize was dangled before them. One response is that we've tried your way of procurement for decades and yet we still have lots of technological shortcomings despite our record high national debt. The floodgate's been opened but we've gotta open it quickly enough to:

1) help us spur enough growth to pay down our record-high $7.2 trillion dollar national debt:

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm

and:

2) make you unemployed as soon as possible. No reason in particular; I jus' like the sound of it. :-)

The only prizes-related empirical data that we seem to have pertaining to what you do is the recent existence of TINY prizes for searching for Near Earth asteroids. You say you're in favor of prizes...what prizes would YOU favor the offering of in YOUR field? Personally I like the idea of offering prizes for the discovery of new planets, or potentially dangerous Near Earth asteroids. I'm in favor of offering ADEQUATE prizes for the discovery of adaptive optics breakthroughs too. And such prizes canNOT be designed so as to prove some self-serving assertion that we necessarily must adhere to the status quo in terms of procurement. I don't know how many scientists and engineers YOU've been talking to but the ones who complain to me on a regular basis (inspiring my VOLUNTEER activism) sure do think that the inertia is not only parasitic, it's self-perpetuating.

Have a good one, and thanks for remembering to take some of your lithium today,

~tax leech