Unfortunately speeches and money do not create "Sputnik" moments. Leadership and vision will, but unfortunately neither is present in any branch of government right now.
When executed correctly, visionary programs led by the government with contributions from our universities and the private sector have the potential to reap far more rewards than the goal of the vision.
During World War II, American men went off to war and American women went to work in manufacturing plants. Plants that made cars and other hard goods were converted to make machines of war. The challenges were enormous. The conversions needed to happen quickly, quality was essential and assembly lines needed to accommodate product changes. The response to this challenge revolutionized the manufacturing process, decreasing costs and increasing both productivity and quality.
The Apollo program in the 1960's was a visionary program with the right balance between government involvement and the private sector. Ultimately the successful landing of a person on the moon, though a great achievement, but advances in technology, manufacturing and materials proved to be of far greater and pervasive value.
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) started in the 1980's was close to being a "boil the ocean" program, but again the benefits of this program was not the goal, but the advances made in supercomputing, high-energy physics and advanced materials. Think about the Internet for a second. Most of the Internet is powered by advanced fiber optic networks which are lit by low cost high efficient lasers. Much of the intellectual property needed to build these lasers came from SDI.
I have given 3 examples of challenges that we have faced as a country in the past century where visionary programs created significant and far reaching output, much of which were never imagined when the program was started.
We are faced with many challenges in today’s world, some of which the scale is perhaps greater than any other period in history. Great leadership is required, not by one leader but by all leaders.
But many of these challenges cannot be met by leadership alone. I believe that the challenge we face in all forms of energy production and consumption is one of these. There are no simple answers in creating a solution for the world’s energy needs, nor are there solutions that will organically grow from the private sector through conventional investment cycles.
The creation of a comprehensive energy program in the same mould of the visionary programs of the past will yield results far greater than we can imagine today.
So Mr. President, with all due respect, if you want a "Sputnik Moment”, make it happen. Give America the blueprint and we will build it. Otherwise you are wasting our tax dollars.
Wednesday, March 2
Obama touts innovation agenda for spurring jobs
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bsilg
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