The Importance of Government Spending

True, the X prize itself was private, but the model of "offering a reward for a successful invention of X" has produced several good results with minimal costs. Both for private funding and public.

Yeah, the military has produced some good results, but the prices were *high*, look at the costs and the outputs of the Strategic Defense Initiative, and I think that it's pretty clear that, yes, they can do the research, but the price will be much larger than leaving it to private development. With military technologies, it is frequently necessary to stay ahead of others as a matter of national security, so that one is a bit of an exception.

A more interesting case is NASA. JPL did some truly great and amazing things when they were first founded, but they have languished badly since the early 80s. I am hard pressed to think of anything really useful to come out of NASA in the last 20 years. This fits the pattern of many government activities. When founded, they are founded with a specific goal and accomplish great things. Then their original mandate goes away, but the organization remains, clawing for their next budget. It is an oft repeated dynamic. I find it rather shocking that we are still using 30 year old technology in our space program and that the *russian* soyuz capsul has a better safety record than our own.