[cripplecreek]

Actually I trust the military more with this sort of thing.

[RandallFlagg]

Same here.

[marktwain]

DARPA has a strong record of real returns. The Internet and GPS are projects that it started and funded research on.

[marktwain]

The idea of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is to fund high payoff, high risk projects that the private sector isn't willing to risk. I think it is one of the few things that the government does right.

As mentioned earlier, it is how we ended up with the Internet and GPS. It usually takes quite a while for these things to pay off, if they do.

Lately, it looks as though we may cure the common cold as a spinoff of one of DARPA’s projects. (a wide spectrum anti-viral)