Good post, and if Tom and I quit arguing and read it we might both modify our positions.

I used to work in the exploration biz myself, we made an important remote sensing minerals prospect that was covered up by our company management because the minerals division and the petroleum division were competing for funding and power. The company had gotten into trouble in the stock market and was trying to downsize, but the different divisions were trying to push each other out and save their own hides.

The remote sensing lab was in the oil division, but we couldn't find any oil from space. We got an exploration contract from the minerals division and we were successsful (which was very embarassing to our upper management). We were immediately forbidden to release our findings to the company, or even to publish them in the journals until minerals division was sold off. Our scientific staff were denied their patents (I was just a lowly fortran programmer) and the remote sensing lab broke up, the hardware, software, staff and data dispersed. But the stuff was still in the ground, I don't doubt it was eventually developed.