Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!ucdavis!deneb.ucdavis.edu!cck
From: cck@deneb.ucdavis.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Core memory
Message-ID: <2490@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>
Date: 22 Jul 88 15:51:26 GMT
References: <1486@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <1010@garth.UUCP> <458@buengc.BU.EDU> <961@bucket.UUCP>
Sender: uucp@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu
Reply-To: cck@deneb.ucdavis.edu.UUCP (Earl H. Kinmonth)
Organization: University of California, Davis
Lines: 14

>Uh, hate to burst your bubble, but *all* of the Shuttle hardware uses 
>15-20 year-old technology. Remember? It was designed that long ago, and
>they wanted reliablity, not state-of-the-art.

Nevertheless, every time their budget comes up, they project an
image of state-of-the-art technology with immense pay offs to
American industry (and the American taxpayer).

I think Japanese science commentators have it right when they
observe that it is US expenditures on cutting-edge boondoogles
like the Shuttle (and of course virtually all military projects)
that draw off engineering talent from the civilian sector.  What
little that works that comes out of US projects can be licensed
by followers who have to pay only for the usable results and have
none of the overhead costs.