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TheOtherHobbestoday at 9:47 AM1 replyview on HN

It's unlikely computing would have developed as quickly as it did without the Cold War. IBM's Sage and MIT's TX0 were both Cold War projects - one for a national early warning system, the other as an R&D platform for flight simulators.

Most US investment in associated tech - including the Internet - came through DARPA.

Not pointing this out because I support war, but to underline that the US doesn't have a culture of aggressive government investment in non-military R&D.

NASA and the NSF both get pocket money in budget terms. And at its height Apollo was a Cold War PR battle with the USSR that happened to funnel a lot of of money to defence contractors.

The original moon landings were not primarily motivated by science.


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erutoday at 11:53 AM

Why does it have to be government R&D?

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