| AMERICAN MILITARY R&D SECRECY DESTRUCTIVE AND WASTEFUL |
http://groups.google.com |
| Robert Morpheal, Bob Ezergailis, Morphealism (morpheal@yahoo.com) |
2008/12/08 10:08 |
If more scientists and engineers push for it, we have a better chance
to pry open the vault and begin the process of demilitarization of
invention, for the sake of human progress. With Barack Obama having
announced "the end of the pork barrel" this becomes an urgent
priority. Please begin to press for what are now becoming possible
changes and which have long been much needed changes.
AMERICAN MILITARY R&D SECRECY DESTRUCTIVE AND WASTEFUL
There was a story today, in the BBC news, about a protest at an
military to the civilian sector. This has profound implications for
both the human condition and the betterment of the environmental
needs to be re-examined, and subsequently rebuilt, and the tax payers,
the civilian public, need to gain the benefit of inventions they have
already paid for but that are being withheld from them under a system
of unfair and wrongful military constraints that strangle the trickle
down of new invention and innovation from furthering adequate progress
in the civilian sector.
reopened following a protest by more than 50 environmentalists. Is
active demonstration always the best option? Climate action group
Plane Stupid said that the action was intended to draw attention to
CO2 emissions from the aviation industry and the protesters intended
We know that direct protest is often naive. It is technically naive
and politically naive. Unfortunately that good intentioned means, and
what is often a lack of adequate effect, as well as difficulties that
are sometimes faced by protestors who are ill prepared to withstand
exert, tend to work against that type of process. Besides that it
communication, not placards, marching and shouting, which tend to
belittle the problem, rather than declaring its severity and offering
creative solutions.
We know that radically new engines have been developed in the USA that
have potential for extreme fuel savings and reduction in emissions
beyond previous expectations. They are much smaller, much quieter, and
much more efficient. They can carry heavier loads, use less materials
in manufacture and certainly less fuel. Materials savings are very
significant when we consider the size and complexity of the average
jumbo jet engine.
Of course we run up against the difficulties involved in gaining
release of new technology. That is true even when there is a desperate
need for that technological advance in the civilian sector, and less
and less need for it in the military sector. Declining military need
does not necessarily open the way to release of new inventions.
Increasing civilian need, and the needs of the environment in
particular, do not help the matter either. Similarly the tendency is
to allow civilian, private sector, R&D to work unguided, sometimes
obstructed and misinformed or even misdirected, to reinvent the wheel
as it were. In a time of economic hardship this is a particularly
failing strategy. Private sector lacks the fiscal ability and morale
to pursue extremely complex, expensive, research and development
efforts. Competition between labs and manufacturers in the private,
civilian industry, sector further precludes progress. They do not
communicate with each other, and do mislead each other, in their quest
for a unique breakthrough to desperately sought for profits. The
desperation tends to become worse then the economy falters and share
holders are circling like vultures seeking to pick at the bones.
Of course we find the same scenario in other areas other than
aerospace. We find it in power generation and conversion. There are
more efficient, more advanced, designs available to the military
sector, but not to the civilian sector. It is not limited to that. It
pervades almost every field of human endeavor, ranging from medicine
to every form of motive power, communications, aerospace, shipping,
power generation, and so forth. There is something for everyone in
that could in minutes destroy the world, can benefit humanity and
potentially save it.
We do need further R&D efforts led by government in a time when
private sector and pork barrel R&D are suffering cuts. That is
mandatory. Naive protest and reliance on privatized, free enterprise,
progress must be considered to be at an end, with its near fatal
reliance on brute competition. The establishing of more nationalized
laboratories for practical civilian oriented research and development
of new inventions is a must. We cannot rely on military trickle down
for progress in the civilian sector. We see the results in the world
and the results are far from good. Similarly the waste of good minds,
creative talents, skills, and resources, in a system where everyone
might only be reinventing the wheel is abominable tragedy and
extremely grievous loss. That system must change. Cooperative research
and development has far more future. Unfortunately it is primarily in
the military R&D sector that cooperation was possible, therefore more
rapid and effective technical advancement. (The lie that that is
untrue, and the lie that free enterprise, privatized, non cooperative
competitive R&D are the method of choice, have long been promoted as
part of a government ideology and its misinformation, disinformation
campaigns.)
cut, the whole infrastructure of R&D will need to be re-examined and
restructured. It cannot continue in a business as usual mode. It will
have to be changed. Similarly there needs to be consideration of what
has been developed using tax payers dollars, and hidden away on the
military shelf, inclusive of advanced and more efficient aerospace
technologies, but far from limited to that, which has potential for
solving real problems in the civilian sphere. Environmental issues,
and reduction of greenhouse gases in aviation, is one such area. No
one knows as much about getting more range for less fuel, lightening
the weight of technology involved, safety in flight, and new aerospace
designs than the military R&D establishment. It is a time when some of
those inventions needs to be made more readily available, for adoption
into the immediate needs of the civilian sector. In this time of
systemic failure, and worsening environmental, human and economic
disaster it remains the responsibility of governments such as the
government of the United States of America to rebuild its research and
development capabilities, and to utilize its existing new technologies
and technological designs, for the betterment of the human condition,
not only solely and exclusively for its destruction. That includes the
withholding of extremely valuable inventions that already exist and
are much needed by the civilian sector.
Robert Morpheal
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