Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ut-sally.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!harpo!seismo!ut-sally!jsq
From: jsq@ut-sally.UUCP (John Quarterman)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: spinoffs
Message-ID: <2169@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 29-Apr-84 23:28:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.2169
Posted: Sun Apr 29 23:28:20 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 30-Apr-84 06:11:22 EDT
References: <12062@sri-arpa.UUCP> <155@hocse.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 23

The U.S. equivalent of Japan's MITI is Microelectronics and Computer Corp.,
or MCC, which is a consortium of a dozen or so firms (DEC, Intel, CDC, etc.).
Evidently those companies didn't think a large number of companies doing
duplicate reseach was cost-effective, either, or that the government was
the appropriate entity to choose who should be funded.

Of course both MITI and MCC are very goal-oriented and do little basic
research (if basic research is taken to be that which has no immediate
goal); we have NSF to fund that, and DARPA has in the past had a large
effect in certain fields such as computer graphics and networking (they
eventually wanted military networks, but were willing to take a
while).

I was under the impression that NASA's purpose is exploration of space
and development of access to space, for both scientific and industrial
uses (communication and weather satellites are early examples; IRAS is
currently being noticed; pharmaceutical synthesis may be next).  Spinoffs
are a convenient way to show that even if you don't agree with NASA's
purposes, the space program is beneficial, but spinoffs are not the
object:  the direct use of space is.
-- 
John Quarterman, CS Dept., University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712 USA
jsq@ut-sally.ARPA, jsq@ut-sally.UUCP, {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!jsq