WI: Doubling US R&D Funding

Well, I've got a justification for this research increase.

Namely, have the Soviet Union last into the 21st century, along with countries like Iran going Communist. Have the Soviet Union carry out internal liberalization that allows it to vastly improve its economy efficiency, but still be stuck in the Cold War.

This would probably cause the US to want to wean itself off of oil, which would require a MASSIVE R&D push, of the type that would go towards things like solar and nuclear energy.
 
Has anyone been saying this? For that matter, what did Asnys say when he started the thread...
A lot of stuff is coming up about fusion reactors and cheap space vehicles, but these aren't really likely even given double funding, perhaps especially given double funding since there is limited reason to search out cheaper, more efficient avenues.

An example might be the increase in funding for planetary science during the beginning of the space age, which transformed it from a marginal, slow-paced science dependent on low-quality telescopic observations to a major field of study that could garner data from in-situ instruments. Each doubling in funding more than halved the time needed to make a new breakthrough and doubled the amount of data returned, at least for a little while.
To what end? Having data is great, but it means diddly-squat if you're not going to do anything with it.

Conversely, there are also situations where no change at all in the budget, but rather a change in how it is spent can lead to significant changes in productivity. "Better faster cheaper," for instance, indirectly led to many more planetary science missions flying in the 1990s and 2000s than in the 1980s, despite a steady/declining budget over that period and despite the failings of BFC as a universal philosophy.
BFC is more likely to occur with reducing budgets rather than increasing ones, since people want the same performance for less money.

And even blind alleys can be useful, in the sense that they tell you which directions not to go.
I'm sure, but throwing $3 million into a bad project instead on OTL $1 million does nothing really good.
 
A lot of stuff is coming up about fusion reactors and cheap space vehicles, but these aren't really likely even given double funding, perhaps especially given double funding since there is limited reason to search out cheaper, more efficient avenues.

A lot? Let's see, six posters have mentioned fusion. Discounting Asnys, who was only listing it as a point for dicussion, only two of those have mentioned it in a positive light. Myself, Killer 300, and jmc247 have expressed skepticism about the plausibility of any amount of funding leading to a breakthrough by the present day, although jmc247 thought that if funding were increased after 9/11 we might be closer to a breakthrough than we are. One of the posters mentioning fusion in a positive light seemed to think we were discussing possible future breakthroughs.

Four posters mentioned space in the context of reduced launch costs (one other mentioned it in the context of spurring the US to invest in a technology). Again discounting Asnys, and again for the same reasons, only one of those, the same person who thought we were discussing possible future technologies, thought it was plausible. Killer300 believed that space would need a strong business case before reduced launch costs would be possible and I believed technical/political factors would prevent anyone from even conceptualizing most of the (currently appearing to be) viable routes to space launch before the 1980s at best.

This objection has no connection to what's actually been discussed in the thread. If anything, far more people have expressed skepticism to the idea that increased R&D funding would lead to any significant breakthroughs than have thought that it would lead to "Civilization-style" advances (and Civilization has diminishing returns, anyways...), which is probably an even more implausible viewpoint.

Also, there's only so much you can spend on the "big, expensive" approaches. If you have two or three tokamaks, a laser implosion facility, and a Z-pinch facility, and more money to spend...why not spend it on some cheap high risk/high reward programs? Similarly, in particle physics there only so many "big rings" you can use, evidently (once you get big enough) no more than one or two in the world. Why not spend it on cheaper alternative research programs?

To what end? Having data is great, but it means diddly-squat if you're not going to do anything with it.

Um, what? This is a bizarre objection to make, especially to a pure research program. And as to the use of the data, well, data returned from the planetary science program has led to a far better understanding of the nature of the planets, their geology and atmospheric dynamics, and the history of the solar system, which has significant implications for Earth sciences as well (since of course the Earth is a planet). It's to the point where you could say, not without reason, that there were two eras in solar exploration, Pre-Spaceflight, and Post-Spaceflight, and only in the latter was planetary science even really a science that could actually describe the planets in any detail.

Although I'm not sure why you're hung up on planetary science, given that it was just an example I picked because it dramatically shows the effect I was describing and because I'm familiar with it. You could say the same about nuclear physics, with a breakpoint at the Manhattan Project instead of Sputnik, for instance.

BFC is more likely to occur with reducing budgets rather than increasing ones, since people want the same performance for less money.

Yes and no. Yes, because obviously with larger budgets there's more incentive to build Christmas-tree Flagships that make everyone happy with loads of data returned and a really high scientific value. No, because sometimes these things are caused by political and historical factors that have nothing to do with budgets. Eg., Better Faster Cheaper itself was caused by a combination of the utter failure of the flagship-first idea at NASA over the previous decade (which launched three probes, Galileo, Magellan, and Mars Observer, the last of which failed), a wave of management reform enthusiasm in government in the 1990s, and the particular characteristics of Goldin. They probably spent more on planetary exploration in the 1990s than the 1980s...they certainly launched more missions (Cassini, Mars Global Surveyor, four Discovery-class missions, Deep Space 1, Mars Climate Orbiter, and Mars Polar Lander/Deep Space 2), plus they did a lot of work leading into later probes (especially New Horizons and Europa Orbiter, but also a lot of development for the MER was undertaken during the 1990s).

Of course, Better, Faster, Cheaper was a terrible idea anyways, as it turned out, so I'm not sure why this should be an objection. There have been many ideas about how to reduce costs over the years, even during some of the better periods for NASA's budgets. Most of them failed because budget shortages meant that they couldn't be implemented (eg., the Planetary Observer/Mariner Mk. II idea from the 1980s. Congress wouldn't pay for the multiple probes needed for the economics of the idea to work out)

I'm sure, but throwing $3 million into a bad project instead on OTL $1 million does nothing really good.

Maybe, but if you throw $3 million, which is really a trivial sum, into three bad projects, especially three nice-looking bad projects...which is probably closer to the mark for most R&D projects. Only certain cases would more money be thrown into the same projects.
 
A lot of stuff is coming up about fusion reactors and cheap space vehicles, but these aren't really likely even given double funding, perhaps especially given double funding since there is limited reason to search out cheaper, more efficient avenues.

My point here isn't "if only we spent more money, we would have marvels to behold," but to explore what the effects of more money would be on scientific progress. Including the possibility that it might have no effect or even cause delays. I asked about fusion power and space travel in particular because a) they're standard examples of Big Science projects, and b) I don't know enough about them to have an opinion myself.

The only entries on the list I know enough about to have an opinion are commercially viable breeders and cheap fission power. For the record, my opinion is that breeders, regardless of their technical merits, will only be viable once the supply of cheap uranium is exhausted, which is unlikely to occur by 2000 in all but the most atomwanked scenarios. As for cheap fission power, I don't know if we could get as low as half the cost of fossil, but we could certainly do better than we did. MSRs aren't the only route to that, either, just one of the coolest - other possibilities include improved gas-cooled reactors and more exotic systems like fission electric cells.
 
A lot? Let's see, six posters have mentioned fusion. Discounting Asnys, who was only listing it as a point for dicussion, only two of those have mentioned it in a positive light.
not many people have written up lists of discoveries either.

Also, there's only so much you can spend on the "big, expensive" approaches. If you have two or three tokamaks, a laser implosion facility, and a Z-pinch facility, and more money to spend...why not spend it on some cheap high risk/high reward programs? Similarly, in particle physics there only so many "big rings" you can use, evidently (once you get big enough) no more than one or two in the world. Why not spend it on cheaper alternative research programs?
What, like proving that too much sugar is bad for you?

Um, what? This is a bizarre objection to make, especially to a pure research program. And as to the use of the data, well, data returned from the planetary science program has led to a far better understanding of the nature of the planets, their geology and atmospheric dynamics, and the history of the solar system, which has significant implications for Earth sciences as well (since of course the Earth is a planet). It's to the point where you could say, not without reason, that there were two eras in solar exploration, Pre-Spaceflight, and Post-Spaceflight, and only in the latter was planetary science even really a science that could actually describe the planets in any detail.
Meh, I'd much rather spend the money avoiding things like Hurricane Carla than trying to discover the atmospheric composition of Jupiter.

Of course, Better, Faster, Cheaper was a terrible idea anyways, as it turned out, so I'm not sure why this should be an objection.
Better faster Cheaper does tend to work better with corporate heads in charge, for example take a look at the various rocket families, in particular the cost/kg. most of the big government initiatives aren't getting much below $10,000/kg, but the Falcon 9 already has it to below $6,000/kg.

Maybe, but if you throw $3 million, which is really a trivial sum, into three bad projects, especially three nice-looking bad projects...which is probably closer to the mark for most R&D projects. Only certain cases would more money be thrown into the same projects.
They threw an awful lot of money into the XB-70 before pulling the plug.

My point here isn't "if only we spent more money, we would have marvels to behold," but to explore what the effects of more money would be on scientific progress. Including the possibility that it might have no effect or even cause delays.
Well I don't know what things were like in the 60s, but if scientific funding were doubled toady, I don't think it would help as much as the optimists think.
 
What, like proving that too much sugar is bad for you?

More like "What effects eating too much sugar causes besides obvious?", "Has eating too much sugar different effects on different people?" etc. Those are somewhat more interesting questions.

Meh, I'd much rather spend the money avoiding things like Hurricane Carla than trying to discover the atmospheric composition of Jupiter.

It's space programs which have given us tools to study the Earth. Studying other planets also helps us to understand our own planet better and I think especially climatology has profited from this.
 
Better faster Cheaper does tend to work better with corporate heads in charge, for example take a look at the various rocket families, in particular the cost/kg. most of the big government initiatives aren't getting much below $10,000/kg, but the Falcon 9 already has it to below $6,000/kg.

You know, it's kind of gotten lost in the shuffle since, but I explicitly stated in the OP that this wasn't necessarily federal funding. Just that R&D spending - private + government + non-profit - doubled due to mostly unspecified reasons, for the sake of a thought experiment.

Well I don't know what things were like in the 60s, but if scientific funding were doubled toady, I don't think it would help as much as the optimists think.

How much do you think it would help? I would honestly like to know. In particular, how do you think it would be different depending on the balance between government vs. private funding?
 
I have no real idea, but I'd guess probably only a 30% increase in the stuff that's going to really give returns (medical equipment, aircraft that enter service, etc.). So speedier development, but not light-years faster.
 
Alright, let me sum up.

Commercially Viable Fusion Power (0.5 / 4): Almost certainly not happening, although we might be closer than IOTL.
Better Fission Power (2 / 3): Reaching half of the cost of fossil is probably implausible, but we can probably do better than OTL. Although it depends more on choice of funding targets (MSRs, FECs) than actual funding levels.
Cancer Cure or Vaccine (0 / 2): Not happening.
AIDs Cure or Vaccine (0.5 / 2): Probably not happening.
Cheaper Space Access (0 / 3): Not happening.
Cheaper Solar Power (0.5 / 2): Probably not happening.
Room-Temperature Superconductors (0 / 1): Not happening unless we get really lucky.
Scramjets (0.5 / 1): Probably not.
Malaria Vaccine, Grid Energy Storage, Non-Fossil Vehicles: No comments.

Other possibilities:

Neutrino Tomography: I looked this up, and it looks incredibly cool.
Cheap Neutron Sources: Cheap neutrons make a number of desirable tricks possible, such as subcritical fission reactors. Even if power-producing fusion is implausible, could we see cheaper fusors useable as neutron sources? Alternatively, improvements in the cost-effectiveness of conventional neutron sources?
Improved Argonomy: I don't know enough about this to even begin to comment.
Supersonic Transports: Please correct me if I'm mistaken, because I don't know much about this, but my understanding is that the SST failed more for political reasons rather than funding issues.
Improved Fundamental Physics: The *SSC would almost certainly happen in this universe.
Better Materials: Could we see faster development of carbon fullerenes and the like?

Edit to Add:

High-Speed Rail
 
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Actually, IMO cheaper solar isn't that hard, provided it's solar-thermal. SST are probably unlikely in the long term, Concorde barely broke even in the long run, and I can't imagine anyone else doing much better. With the right backers though, I can see bullet-trains running a lot earlier.
 
Actually, IMO cheaper solar isn't that hard, provided it's solar-thermal.

The metric I was using was "as cheap as fossil fuels without government subsidies." Do you think solar thermal could actually do that well? I don't know much about the field, but I remember looking up the price per kWh for solar thermal, finding out it was even worse than PV, and going back to my fission reactors.

SST are probably unlikely in the long term, Concorde barely broke even in the long run, and I can't imagine anyone else doing much better. With the right backers though, I can see bullet-trains running a lot earlier.

I'll add bullet trains to the list.
 
The metric I was using was "as cheap as fossil fuels without government subsidies." Do you think solar thermal could actually do that well? I don't know much about the field, but I remember looking up the price per kWh for solar thermal, finding out it was even worse than PV, and going back to my fission reactors.
Is that 2 years after setup, or 20? The figures I get from wikipedia are <10c/kWh for PV and an expectation from the NREL of 5.47c/kWh from solar thermal by 2020.
 
Is that 2 years after setup, or 20? The figures I get from wikipedia are <10c/kWh for PV and an expectation from the NREL of 5.47c/kWh from solar thermal by 2020.

I don't remember - it was a while back. For PV, I used to get my price data from solarbuzz, but they've changed their website and now I can't find it. IIRC, their present-day price data last time I checked for industrial-scale installations at present was 15 cts per kWh in optimum climates, 30 cts per kWh in non-optimal, not including cost of batteries. I don't think those figures included government subsidies, but I'm not sure.
 
Some thoughts:
  • More $$$ for pure or applied science or both? The big problem of modern research is that it's mostly applied AFAIK with a very defined goal and expected return.
  • The reason Apollo and the Internet got done is the USA got spooked by Sputnik to build bigger, better rockets and the Soviets nuking us to want to build a C4I system that could survive and keep working. That emotional basis is what sparked the solid-state and quantum physics and electronics engineering research that led to communications and data-processing revolutions we see today.
  • I've mentioned a few times that OTL basic physics has bogged down considerably the last forty years b/c of the circle jerk of not building high-enough energy colliders until LHC to prove/disprove superstring theory and come up with a GUT applicable by humans to make plasma physics and nuclear fusion a viable option IMO. There's a ton of other things you could do with it. Could we have done so?
  • Three things would be needed for that to happen- nuclear physicists get rock-star money and egoboo, Congress and various powers-that-be give DOE carte blanche to get it done ASAP, politics-be-damned, AND the public thinks its worthwhile. IOW, more or less like cancer research.
  • Everyone with a shred of talent and interest gets encouraged to do it. Of course it leads to a massive oversupply of PhD physicists and engineers who could be repurposed in a variety of fields. Think we couldn't have had maglev trains back in the 60's if a LOT more people worked on it with decent funding? Do you think we couldn't have nuclear waste processing techniques that force the radioactives down to inert lead a lot quicker to ultimate social benefit? IMO, that could've been done in the 1970's and tweaked to commerically viable tech by 1980. Same thing for ion rocketry, efficient solar cells and capacitors, and fuckton of other stuff.
  • Amazing work's been done OTL in biotechnology thanks to the platinum rush in biomedical and lately alternative energy/chemical engineering research, because there's so much %$#^ money in it that even the most scientifically-ignorant Congresscritter or financier's willing to drop massive cash on even the most unlikely prospect.
  • How do we do that? IMO butterfly the hippie movement from getting any social traction. Too many folks became skeptical of technology and the whole system of DoD research due to the Vietnam War. With the hippie movement, anti-technology feelings trumped reality and became social policy from the 1970's on. Between the hippies and fundamentalist Christian movements that shredded American science education and secular education as a whole, we haven't recovered. Another emotional issue is the Zeitgeist that what we've got's just fine and doesn't need more than minor tweaking.

Errr, what? America has too few STEM graduates, not too many.
 
IMO, overall we're not going to be seeing any big change OTL to ATL, but what we are going to see is a lot of what start out of relatively small improvements that grow, faster trains, cheaper solar power, possibly, yes, improved agronomy, and probably some improvements in material science, and maybe medical equipment (more durable artificial organs and that in particular). Of course, that's just the filter-down effect, and a lot of it could probably be achieved with only a modest increase in spending, but a wiser allocation of spending.

Also, on the PV/Solar-Thermal issue, Solar-Thermal allows you to store power more easily (at least the molten-salt ones do), while PV is more easily adapted to small uses, ie, rooftop installations (maybe along-side solar water heating), building facades above the reach of vandals, or even windows, thus both types will probably get boosted if the funding and political support are there.
 
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Archibald

Banned
SST and SSTO: no way...

Alright, let me sum up.

Commercially Viable Fusion Power (0.5 / 4): Almost certainly not happening, although we might be closer than IOTL.
Better Fission Power (2 / 3): Reaching half of the cost of fossil is probably implausible, but we can probably do better than OTL. Although it depends more on choice of funding targets (MSRs, FECs) than actual funding levels.
Cancer Cure or Vaccine (0 / 2): Not happening.
AIDs Cure or Vaccine (0.5 / 2): Probably not happening.
Cheaper Space Access (0 / 3): Not happening.
Cheaper Solar Power (0.5 / 2): Probably not happening.
Room-Temperature Superconductors (0 / 1): Not happening unless we get really lucky.
Scramjets (0.5 / 1): Probably not.
Malaria Vaccine, Grid Energy Storage, Non-Fossil Vehicles: No comments.

Other possibilities:

Neutrino Tomography: I looked this up, and it looks incredibly cool.
Cheap Neutron Sources: Cheap neutrons make a number of desirable tricks possible, such as subcritical fission reactors. Even if power-producing fusion is implausible, could we see cheaper fusors useable as neutron sources? Alternatively, improvements in the cost-effectiveness of conventional neutron sources?
Improved Argonomy: I don't know enough about this to even begin to comment.
Supersonic Transports: Please correct me if I'm mistaken, because I don't know much about this, but my understanding is that the SST failed more for political reasons rather than funding issues.
Improved Fundamental Physics: The *SSC would almost certainly happen in this universe.
Better Materials: Could we see faster development of carbon fullerenes and the like?

Edit to Add:

High-Speed Rail

Supersonic transport will never happen again, the sonic boom is nearly impossible to supress. The best that could be hoped for would be a machine limited to flight over the oceans - transatlantic, essentially Europe / East coast and transpacific, USA / Japan.
That's too little to build a commercially viable machine.

Cheap access to space:

Single-stage-to-orbit is very hard to achieve.

A SSTO sitting on the launch pad has to be 92% of propellants (hydrogen and oxygen). The machine itself, the tanks, the pilots or passengers and payload of course, have to be packaged into the remaining 8%.
Break that rule, and the thing never reach orbit.
Now watch any aircraft ever build: there is alway a serious weight creep between the drawing board and the first prototype. A good 20% or more.
Well, it is that weight creep that makes SSTO impossible. SSTO always work on the drawing board, but never at the prototype stage, and even less at any operational level.

This doesn't mean cheap access to space isn't feasible.

Black Horse: a unique concept
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/im/magnus/bh/analog.html

Scramjet isn't worth the effort for orbital machines. Another way around is air liquefaction - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_(spacecraft)

Air liquefaction consists of a rocket engine that can be fed from the atmosphere - cutting the size of the liquid oxygen tank. Easier to say than done. HOTOL (1982) and Skylon are examples of that, but air liquefaction has been studied since the dawn of the space age, in 1960.
Skylon air liquefaction engine, the Sabre, has been declared a workable concept by the European Space Agency last year. So air liquefaction is probably feasible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_air_cycle_engine

I'm surprised no-one mentionned space ressources (of course, cheap access to space has to come first...)
- crystall growth in zero-G
- lunar / asteroid platinum http://www.thespacereview.com/article/555/1
- space based solar power http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power

For nuclear matters I'm a fan of non-breeder MSR, such as the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment. But my knowledge of nuclear power is rather limited.
 
what is science for in this scenario?

As a scientist, I have to ask what the aim of your proposed increased funding would be? Is it to learn, or to build new gizmos, or to meet specified national criteria. Most of the comments on here are targetted to the 'we will invest X millions and get a new super-thingy in Y years' way of looking at things. That's not surprising considering that's the way that politicians and businesses (and the public?) tend to see things, but it's not the way that science actually progresses. Most, if not all, of the many projects mentioned stem from fundamental research where the main point was to learn something new. From new knowledge comes new discoveries and then new technologies. Look at last year's physics laureates, a Friday afternoon 'let's try something different' experiment with a graphite pencil and some sticky tape led to the discovery of graphene which is now being developed for a vast array of potential new technologies.

So the people who have already asked where the added funding comes from and would go (applied vs fundamental, government vs private) are right, those are important questions as they would help clarify where the increased funding would be targetted. Or if all fields of science would benefit?

One other point to consider in this is a major aim of science funding is training of the next generation of scientists, engineers, technicians, doctors etc. Increasing the science budget would lead to a general advancement in both technical and intellectual skills required for a technologically-dependent society, with trickle down benefits occurring throughout society.
 
"IMO, overall we're not going to be seeing any big change OTL to ATL"

I don't think that's true, it depends on where the money is spent. For example, we are now entering a new age in biological research with the potential for man to redefine the very meanings of life and human identity. I know that the theme of this thread isn't about future research, and that a large number of fields would have to be developed faster to bring our current understanding of biology, bioengineering and medicine to the same point 20-30 years earlier in an ATL, but if that did happen then dramatic changes could very well occur. These could be far more important than whether or not we have space elevators or fusion power as they could easily concern personal and moral issues such as can I get medical insurance because of my genetic profile, or how do my kids compete in a future where increased mental and physical acuities can be programmed in if you have the cash? Advances in science would not just mean there would be some extra shiny toys for humanity, but could very well change how societies function.
 
There are some fields, however, where more funding means virtually squat, because there's plenty of funding already and developments are limited by internal politics, and by the intelligence, innovation and luck of the people working on the project.
 
First, R&D funding is nice, but get the transistor public in 1927 instead of 1947. It can probably be done with the help of one Russian who blundered across the concept in the mid-1920s and a German immigrant to the US who came across a different idea by 1930. This allows WWII to benefit not only from more advanced technology but also drives funding into newer technologies.

Second, I listed near-future technologies to show where we want to go. As is already mentioned, resource exploitation in space means cheap space travel - make OTRAG more attractive or some similar concept and it is a good start. For extra kicks get Energia rockets adopted by another major/borderline major player, say Brazil or India, and you can really have fun.

Third, are you looking for overall science education or technological growth? Perhaps more aggressive recruitment of foreign talent or prevention of declining of educational standards domestically? For extra kicks in an near-ASB fashion if you could replace the emphasis on sports with academia and science who knows how far you could take the country...
 
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