While researching new running shoes lately, I stumbled across a debatable claim: the technology which makes todays shoes so comfortable is a consequence of past military research.
"Military research benefits the civilian world!" used to bark the Armed Forces Network commercials I watched when posted overseas (no one in their right mind would watch AFN when in the US because, of course, the private marketplace offers far better options for television viewing than the USG).
It is unquestionable that some USG sponsored research, be it from the military or any other agency, results in benefits for the civilian community. What is not asked though, is how much better would those benefits be if they had been focused on civilian results in the first place? For example, NASA takes credit for creating memory foam, the ubiquitous material now commonly found in seat cushions around the world.
Memory foam is a neat little invention and certainly the world is moderately better off for it existing. But how precisely was civilian memory foam born from NASA's creation? Surely NASA was not out to create a consumer product. No, they simply stumbled upon an alternative use for a product designed for use in space research. Well, how much more efficient would it have been to actually just invent memory foam for the benefit of civilians? In other words, instead of engineering some high-tech space material and then realizing "oh, this might have a use in the private world" would not the direct course of simply researching civilian improvements have been much cheaper and faster?
And what, one might ask, is that exact course? The private market, of course. By leaving funds in the hands of the taxpayers so that the private sector can rationally and effectively distribute resources to productively innovate and create wealth.
NASA, like the Department of Defense and other USG agencies, devotes a considerable amount of time to touting its "we benefit the civilian world" bona fides. This link outlines the wealth of NASA resources devoted to convincing taxpayers that space research begets civilian improvements. NASA makes a significant effort to argue that the space program is essentially profitable, arguing that it creates jobs and is beneficial for the economy.
Where do they think the funding for the space program comes from- space?
It comes from productive taxpayers! If the space program is creating jobs, it is incestuous. No new wealth is being created because government has no ability to create wealth- it can only redistribute wealth. If the solution to a strong economy were government spending and centrally planned zero unemployment, the Soviet Union would still be hammering and sickling. It does not work.
It is troublesome, also, how these federal agencies devote so much time lobbying the populace about how beneficial they are. Reading NASA's propaganda, one gets the feeling that there are two types of people in America: those who love a strong economy and space exploration, and those too dumb to understand that spending federal dollars on space research is the greatest idea since Goddard looked up. The clerk in Houston who updates NASA's "In Your Life" Facebook page (no doubt he is titled a "Public Relations Advisor" or some equally Orwellian name) is not working for free. I resent paying NASA to tell me how useful they are to my life. I believe it is the role of each voter and their elected representative to make that decision. NASA's responsibility is to provide facts about their work, not to operate as an active advocate in the arena of political opinion. (NASA, of course, is not the only federal agency culpable of using tax dollars for self-promotion- every one of them does this).
Alchemy, that ancient pseudoscience which attempted to turn non-precious metals into gold, stumbled across a host of discoveries which benefited the non-alchemy world-- particularly in the area of medicine, where a number of alchemists were formally trained. But imagine how much further their research would have advanced into medicine had that been their concentration? Plato, Brahe, even Newton were committed alchemists. What if they had instead spent that time advancing their traditional areas of focus? Imagine if the tax dollars being spent in USG funded projects were left in the hands of innovative Americans, what new discoveries and wealth we would realize.
I wish the United States (as a country but not a government) were more engaged in space research. I appreciate memory foam. But I want my buck to go as far as it can go. The most efficient way to explore space is to remove government from the equation. Leave wealth in the hands of the private sector and altruism and capitalism will shoot rockets higher and take our explorations further and deeper than ever before. Just sit back on your inefficiently engineered memory foam cushion and watch it happen.
Sensible libertarian views on nearly everything- except foreign affairs.