[templar]

Very quiet spoken, but grounded in science and facts. It was so refreshing

Well, arguments also grounded in science and fact:

Bumblebees can't fly
A man cannot stand speeds in excess of 35 miles per hour without dying
The world is flat
The universe revolves around the earth
Travel past the Van Allen belt is impossible since it impossible for rockets to carry the nescessary weight of lead shielding to protect the people on the ship.
The speed of light is fixed and cannot change
etc.

What is scientific and factual today is not what will be scientific and factual in the future. The purpose of research is to develop new science and new facts. Consider what an early electrical engineer in 1903, only a hundred years ago, would say to the idea of the semi conductors and computers that we all take for granted today.

[Hodar]

Nice response. If the same logic that he proposes were applied to NASA, we would still be waiting to orbit the earth, as the means is still not 'economically viable'. If gasoline were discovered yesterday, the same arguements he made about costs involved in mass producing it could be used.

As a wise man once observed: "Necessity is the mother of invention"

[Interious]

H2 power clearly is not the Panacea The left (Jeremy Rifkin, for example) thinks it is. It is clearly not a source of energy but a medium through which energy may be transfered.

That said, Honda's huge initial outlay for prototypes is not surprising. It may be foolish to rule out initially difficult concepts because of apparent lack of practical feasibilty in the present.

I'd like to see other assessments from purely scientific bodies--or as free from politics as is possible.

[Redleg Duke]

Don't forget that spaceflight is impossible.

[jpl]

I have no doubt whatsoever that some day we will have affordable cars that run on fuel cells. The relevant question of course is whether this need is so absolutely critical that government should be spending massive amounts of tax dollars to subsidize the research. I believe the need is not that critical (despite the radical environmental caterwauling), and that the market, and not the government, should dictate the development of this new technology.