GUEST,Terri Byerly:

I don't think you realize that you are not allowed to think that way here.


Teribus:

"Then along came the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), personally I believe that was the biggest hoax ever perpetrated,"

Hardly. As a research program, it was very usefull, and more pure science was funded under it's auspices than you would believe. I know- I worked on a number of those programs. LACE, RME, Clementine, MSTI-3. For all that some may wish otherwise, the best way to get funding is to show how it will help the nation's defense. Look at most of the medical advances of the last century.