"From Concorde to the iPhone, state intervention..."
Discussion
...drives technological innovation"
I know PH really does not get enough 'Guardian time' so I thought I'd share this thought provoking piece...
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/...
- written by the economics editor of Channel 4 News, no less.
Perhaps understandably he finds many supporters in the comments. And some noteworthy dissenters (ie peeps who know what they're talking about).
I know PH really does not get enough 'Guardian time' so I thought I'd share this thought provoking piece...
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/...
- written by the economics editor of Channel 4 News, no less.
Perhaps understandably he finds many supporters in the comments. And some noteworthy dissenters (ie peeps who know what they're talking about).
Or more generally - political motives.
Outside of real, live shooting wars, the Cold War was a massive pusher of technology.
And there is no doubt that Concorde would not have got beyond the paper project stage if the British government had not been hell bent on cosying up to the French in order to persuade them to allow us to join the EEC.
Outside of real, live shooting wars, the Cold War was a massive pusher of technology.
And there is no doubt that Concorde would not have got beyond the paper project stage if the British government had not been hell bent on cosying up to the French in order to persuade them to allow us to join the EEC.
I'm with Taleb on this one. On the whole, the establishment - government and education - are pretty s
t at picking and backing winners until they are blindingly obvious and, by that point, their pursuit is tantamount to the old joke about an army always being prepared to win the last battle fought.
t at picking and backing winners until they are blindingly obvious and, by that point, their pursuit is tantamount to the old joke about an army always being prepared to win the last battle fought.And yet on the other hand, many, many technologies that we now depend on would have stuttered along with little investment without government funding. Business is only likely to invest in technologies where it sees a fairly quick return on the investment.
A government will invest in technology for (as I mentioned above) political reasons - but also for strategic reasons.
Where would the UK aeropsace industry be if it hadn't been for organisations such as the Royal Aircraft Establishment, the National Gas Turbine Establishment or the Radio and Radar Research Establishment. Short sighted governments have decided that these are a waste of taxpayers' money - so they now either no longer exist or have been privatised into rump PLCs (which will probably die due to lack of short term profitability).
In the US, the aircraft industry progressed rapidly due to the work carried out by the government run National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) - which later became NASA - and which is still in existence and providing a major service to US aerospace.
A government will invest in technology for (as I mentioned above) political reasons - but also for strategic reasons.
Where would the UK aeropsace industry be if it hadn't been for organisations such as the Royal Aircraft Establishment, the National Gas Turbine Establishment or the Radio and Radar Research Establishment. Short sighted governments have decided that these are a waste of taxpayers' money - so they now either no longer exist or have been privatised into rump PLCs (which will probably die due to lack of short term profitability).
In the US, the aircraft industry progressed rapidly due to the work carried out by the government run National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) - which later became NASA - and which is still in existence and providing a major service to US aerospace.
Digga said:
From a commercial and engineering perspective, one could argue that aircraft technology was well in progress before any state intervention.
One could argue that - but one would not be 100% correct.The NACA was set up by the US government in 1915. It was established because by 1914 the US had fallen completely behind Europe (particularly Germany, France and the UK ) in aviation technology precisely BECAUSE those countries had industries backed by government (especially France and Germany) and America, relying on the pure commercial exploitation of early aviation, had slipped badly behind.
In the 1920s and 30s, the NACA provided vital data to the many privately owned aircraft companies which enabled America to catch up - and some cases, surpass - the rest of the world.
In the UK, the RAE at Farnborough conducted a lot of research into supercharging and high altitude, high speed flight which greatly assisted UK aircraft design and, to a large extent, made sure that at least some of the aircraft we had in 1939 were able to hold their own.
And every time you step onto your boring, run of the mill airliner which can cruise happilly at 35,000 feet at Mach.82, the reason why that aeroplane can do that routinely is precisely because of research programmes run by entities such as NACA/NASA and the RAE.
am I right in thinking that a lot of the blue sky stuff wouldn't get done withouth government money? The stuff that is interesting, but presently serves no purpose. Like the Graphene thing, amazing that you can produce sheets of graphite 1 atom thick, but then what? Not immediately useful, but one day, it will be and then we'll wonder how we lived without it.
Also which business could afford to foot the bill for things like CERN, ITER and the Laser Ignition Facility etc?
Also which business could afford to foot the bill for things like CERN, ITER and the Laser Ignition Facility etc?
Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Monday 28th July 13:36
Eric Mc said:
And yet on the other hand, many, many technologies that we now depend on would have stuttered along with little investment without government funding. Business is only likely to invest in technologies where it sees a fairly quick return on the investment.
A government will invest in technology for (as I mentioned above) political reasons - but also for strategic reasons.
Where would the UK aeropsace industry be if it hadn't been for organisations such as the Royal Aircraft Establishment, the National Gas Turbine Establishment or the Radio and Radar Research Establishment. Short sighted governments have decided that these are a waste of taxpayers' money - so they now either no longer exist or have been privatised into rump PLCs (which will probably die due to lack of short term profitability).
In the US, the aircraft industry progressed rapidly due to the work carried out by the government run National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) - which later became NASA - and which is still in existence and providing a major service to US aerospace.
Good post A government will invest in technology for (as I mentioned above) political reasons - but also for strategic reasons.
Where would the UK aeropsace industry be if it hadn't been for organisations such as the Royal Aircraft Establishment, the National Gas Turbine Establishment or the Radio and Radar Research Establishment. Short sighted governments have decided that these are a waste of taxpayers' money - so they now either no longer exist or have been privatised into rump PLCs (which will probably die due to lack of short term profitability).
In the US, the aircraft industry progressed rapidly due to the work carried out by the government run National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) - which later became NASA - and which is still in existence and providing a major service to US aerospace.
I'm fairly economically conservative, but there is a place for governments to invest long term in emerging technologies with a view to allowing an industry to blossom from it, IMO.
Otispunkmeyer said:
am I right in thinking that a lot of the blue sky stuff wouldn't get done withouth government money? The stuff that is interesting, but presently serves no purpose. Like the Graphene thing, amazing that you can produce sheets of graphite 1 atom thick, but then what? Not immediately useful, but one day, it will be and then we'll wonder how we lived without it.
Also which business could afford to foot the bill for things like CERN, ITER and the Laser Ignition Facility etc?
Not to mention Carbon Fibre - which was pioneered at the RAE in the early 1960s.Also which business could afford to foot the bill for things like CERN, ITER and the Laser Ignition Facility etc?
Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Monday 28th July 13:36
I am pretty sure laser technology would have come out of government funded research.
Throughout the 20s and 30s, the NACA conducted a massive amount of research into aerodynamic shapes and profiles which remain pretty much standard to this day - particularly for subsonic aircraft.
Apart from the famous NACA duct, they also came up with dozens of effective wing cross sections and also cowl shapes for radial piston engines.
After WW2, the NACA continued their aerodynamic research - but this time into the supersonic and later hypersonic regions using advanced jet and rocket powered aircraft.
After losing out to Sputnik, in 1958, President Eisenhower decided that NOT ENOUGH government expenditure was going into aviation and space so he had the NACA (which was technically a mere "Advisory Committee") upgraded to a full administrative unit of the Government.
NACA stands for "National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics"
NASA stands for "National Air and Space Administration".
Apart from the famous NACA duct, they also came up with dozens of effective wing cross sections and also cowl shapes for radial piston engines.
After WW2, the NACA continued their aerodynamic research - but this time into the supersonic and later hypersonic regions using advanced jet and rocket powered aircraft.
After losing out to Sputnik, in 1958, President Eisenhower decided that NOT ENOUGH government expenditure was going into aviation and space so he had the NACA (which was technically a mere "Advisory Committee") upgraded to a full administrative unit of the Government.
NACA stands for "National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics"
NASA stands for "National Air and Space Administration".
The Americans have lots of cool places for pie in the sky research. Another is the Z-machine. Google it, its amazing. Its usage went from heavy ion fusion for looking at developing pulsed fusion power, to atomic bomb research and modelling and now I believe its back on the fusion power path with the Z-pinch Inertial Fusion programme.
Oh and its the worlds largest x-ray generator!
That and the National Ignition Facility are probably my favorite of the US labs... and they have a lot of them (or did) and they all research different things.
Lawrence Livermore, Sandia, Argonne, Ames, Oak Ridge, Princeton Plasma Physics.... its a good looking set up!
Oh and its the worlds largest x-ray generator!
That and the National Ignition Facility are probably my favorite of the US labs... and they have a lot of them (or did) and they all research different things.
Lawrence Livermore, Sandia, Argonne, Ames, Oak Ridge, Princeton Plasma Physics.... its a good looking set up!
maffski said:
Bad choice of examples. The only thing Concorde proved was that we didn't have the technology to do it at price the public would pay.
And 'the iPhone owes it's success to government funded GPS' suffers from the minor disadvantage that the first iPhone didn't have GPS.
Noise restrictions and the oil price hike killed Concorde. Crude oil at 1960s prices meant that Concorde price per passenger mile was not significantly more than contemporary airliners crawling along at sub-sonic speeds. Crude oil at post-1973 prices led to Concorde price per passenger mile at several multiples of sub-sonic contemporaries. Bean counters will no doubt produce differing figures, such is the nature of bean counting.And 'the iPhone owes it's success to government funded GPS' suffers from the minor disadvantage that the first iPhone didn't have GPS.
Some good points Eric.
Concorde made billions for BA in profits in the end.
More than that it set the ground work for international co-operation that spawned Airbus. Now a huge success story.
The question is what is the next big thing. Fusion technology is an obvious target - I wonder how key the effort at Culham is? Is it world class? Should we be investing more in that?
I personally think the UK should get on with Taranis and just productionise it. Yes, it'll cost billions, but these things do and at least all those billion would go into the UK economy. Stop playing and do it, before Dassault does it anyway.
Concorde made billions for BA in profits in the end.
More than that it set the ground work for international co-operation that spawned Airbus. Now a huge success story.
The question is what is the next big thing. Fusion technology is an obvious target - I wonder how key the effort at Culham is? Is it world class? Should we be investing more in that?
I personally think the UK should get on with Taranis and just productionise it. Yes, it'll cost billions, but these things do and at least all those billion would go into the UK economy. Stop playing and do it, before Dassault does it anyway.
The success of a technology is not just measured in monetary terms. As a bean counter I feel safe in saying this.
Although Concorde in itself cannot be termed a financial success on its own merits, it did creare a number of beneficial offshoots - some not foreseen at its launch.
Without Concorde, there may have been no Airbus - and Airbus is a definite commercial success.
It also showed that international cooperation on large projects can mean big tasks can be performed better when nations combine their efforts.
Although Concorde in itself cannot be termed a financial success on its own merits, it did creare a number of beneficial offshoots - some not foreseen at its launch.
Without Concorde, there may have been no Airbus - and Airbus is a definite commercial success.
It also showed that international cooperation on large projects can mean big tasks can be performed better when nations combine their efforts.
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