Indeed, imagine if Nixon launched Project Independence, a "Manhattan Project" for clean energy, with the goal of achieving energy self-sufficiency by 1980. Imagine he launched this sometime around, I dunno, November 7, 1973. Just think where we might be today!

http://www.energy.gov/about/timeline1971-1980.htm

Amusingly enough, the actual Manhattan Project did give us a clean source of energy. We just don't want to use it.

People seem to have forgotten that the Federal Government has pumped $billions into green energy research over the past decades, with little to show. I haven't heard ahy good arguments for why Obama will have more success.

> As an example, imagine if the government focused on alternate energy years ago.

You mean, things like biofuel subsidies?

> Also, a lot of technology comes as a by product of working on something for the long term.

Yes, whether it's funded by the government or not.

It should be noted that pharmaceuticals being researched today by private corporations will not see market in the United States for 10 years.

Why is that relevant? Is your implication that a government-funded pharmaceutical company would be more efficent? If so, why? Just curious.

No, he's just saying that private companies can focus on the long term as well, if it's in their interest.

That's true but I think the pharmaceutical industry is an exception due to all the regulation. If it were possible to market drugs in 5 years instead of 10 most companies would focus on the 5 year drugs. With a 10 year drug there is a lot of uncertainty and is a reason there has been a lot of mergers in the pharmaceutical industry over the past few decades. A big company will contribute a sales force to sell the smaller company's products and then will just acquire them if things are going well.

10 years is still not long term.

Not as long as something like the government could sustain, definitely. People with really long-term plans might get incubated.

Am I allowed to make Bene Gesserit jokes on HN?

It's longer than two presidential mandates in the US.

I was down modded for saying 10 years is not long term but at 25 most people need to think in terms of a 40 year retirement horizon. I am 28 and I am thinking about the cost of heath care in my 80's which is 50+ years from now. So excuse me for saying this but most people under thirty need to be looking 50+ years ahead because there is a good chance we are going to be alive then.

Now most people in power tend to be older which may shorten their views but 100 years is not all that long when you start thinking the people that come after you.

Well that's just an extreme case. I don't mean subsidies but actual investment in R&D.

But most VC companies won't invest in something for the long term. Do you think any VC company would have invested in a company trying to get into space in the 1960s?

You should probably have known what you were talking about before you said that. Space-related stocks did incredibly well during the 1960's. Some of them -- satellite companies -- did, in fact, get into space.

Hmm I did not know that but thanks for letting me know. Well let me rephrase my question. Would those private companies have been so successful if the government did not allocated funding for space research or focus on it's own space program?

I don't know the answer but I think they'd be related.

Maybe I can modify my initial point to state that once the government shows a long term interest in an industry companies will be more prone to enter it.