“Make love, not war.” Nothing wrong with that; given a *choice* I would much rather do the former…

Oh. And all in favor of sending Mongoose to Mars, please stand up!

What the hell is your problem man? You come off as an arrogant asshole who is nothing more than a pissant of a bully. Nothing good to say about nothing. Disdain for all. Everyone is inferior to you. I’m surprised your handle is “Ten” and not “One.”

So we’re supposed to be impressed that you have been part of startups. Big whup! From your attitude you must have been more of a silent partner because your people skills suck and you would be a disaster at hands on operations.

Think you’ve got imagination? Can’t imagine that in tough times people might want a diversion from all the crap going on in Washington at in the economy to think about accomplishing something beyond our Fearless Reader wanting to redistribute the wealth of the nation, sink us in the developing nation status, making friends with our enemies, and giving the poor black folk some payback for their perceived grievances? I can think of lots better things to do with the trillions being wasted to Stimulate unions and Obama loyalists, on “Crap & Tax” and supposed Health Care Reform to “cover” the uninsured.

And all you can do is rain on everybody’s parade. That is mighty big of you. So why don’t you educate us about how the space program did not produce any payback to society, any economic benefits to Americans, pride, educational achievement (at least for awhile), and advances in scientific knowledge. Go ahead O’Wise One. You proclaim it was all a big waste of money. YOU prove it!

I wasn’t looking for a subsidy. I was pointing out that sometimes, the only way to get a game changing invention into service may require a research subsidy, or some patent advantage. There’s nothing to what I came up with that justified a research subsidy (it’s all pretty minor development), and there was no room to carve out a new patent.

the other thing that bothers me about that is that something doesn’t smell right about a company, ostensibly blithely unaware that their patent has great potential. It happens, but not very often.

Clayton, have you approached them about a licensing agreement? A good patent attorney should be able to feel them out without tipping his (your) hat too much. You do your thing under their license, and they continue to do their thing. Win-win. Yes, it’s always possible that they just want to be butts.

It has potential, but not for their original purpose. And anyone who holds that patent and couldn’t figure out what we were trying to license would be too dumb to breathe. (There is the slight danger that it might not have qualified for “novel” even though it seems that no one is doing it yet, just because it is pretty obvious, once you think about it for a few minutes.)

Scientists said 50 years ago we would all be riding around in our own personal hovercraft by now.

Those weren’t scientists, those were futurists. Those are the same guys with 10 pairs of pointed rubber ears in their closets, who spend all their weekends at Star Trek conventions. The scientists were too busy doing actual science to bother with these dweebs.

Scientists said 50 years ago we would all be riding around in our own personal hovercraft by now. Scientists said 50 years ago we would all have a domestic robot to do the housework by now. Scientists said 50 years ago that nuclear power stations would produce electricity to chap to bill.

Let’s go back to the moon but make sure we put engineers and technologists in charge of the project if we want to see the astronauts get home safely

Bow to me.

I am the master of my own domain.

Do you know what a light year is, Mike? Do you know where an inhabitable planet is? Do you comprehend the expenditures of getting there and the impossibility of returning anything of value at anything other than a vast financial loss?

I thought not. And it shows too. Join the other ignorants in this thread.

I’m not even remotely afraid of your or anyone proving me wrong by the facts. In fact, I’d applaud it! But don’t call that openness closed minded, planet ranger, when your argument hasn’t so much as a single fact that supports the space venture on economic grounds.

It’s not my mind that’s closed, little space conqueror. It’s all the goofball minds that still think faster than light drive exists and tons of places have breathable atmospheres (and unicorns and fountains of gold, apparently). That’s closed-minded, pal.