John Smith wrote:
We need to scale back NASA and any space plans, other then the pursuit of
maintaining military superiority in space, if needed and focusing on
developing a fuel source which is not harming the planet and threatening
to bring us to our knees from dwindling supplies.

Why can't we have both?

And what constitutes military superiority in space?

A scientific project on the scale of NASA and designed to develop a new
fuel, or new fuels, would be in our best interests...

What's needed is a long-term path to energy independence that's not run
by
a large bureaucratic organization, nor that is politically beholden to
so many groups.

Which pretty much leaves government out of the picture.

--

The problem is bigger than fuel - it's all about how Americans live and
what they
expect life to be like. Also their isolation from cause-and-effect.

For example, it's easy to say the solution is to require better gas
mileage from
new cars. Right now the price of gasoline focuses attention on
gas-guzzling SUVs
and the like.

But if the price of gasoline drops to, say, under $2/gallon, too many
people
forget all about the problem, and buy themselves a Hummer.

Gasoline may seem expensive today, as the price nears $3/gal in some
places. But when you
adjust for inflation, the price isn't that high, compared to, say, the
late 1970s.

The problems go way beyond gasoline. The big question is whether
Americans will change
the way they live in order to achieve energy independence. From what
I've seen in the
past 20-25 years, the answer is pretty much "no". Or rather, "HELL NO!"

What's more, the solutions are complex. A 20 mpg minivan isn't the most
efficient vehicle in the world - unless you have, say, six people
aboard, who would otherwise be in separate vehicles. One 20 mpg van
with six passengers is more energy-efficient than six 100 mpg
supereconoboxes.

But will most people carpool? Will they pay for public transit, wind
farms, and higher-efficiency appliances? Will they live in walkable
towns and cities rather than sprawling into suburbia where every trip
requires a car? How much are Americans willing to reduce their
consumption of energy to balance the equation?

That's the real challenge. Much tougher problems than space flight,
because if the solutions can't survive in the real-world marketplace,
they'll disappear.

25 years ago I bought a new car that got 40 mpg city, 50 mpg highway,
and met all the pollution and safety regs. The descendants of such cars
still exist today. But how many are sold?

There *are* new processes out there, like TDP. Might be snake oil,
might be the real thing. How do we separate the wheat from the chaff,
and get the good systems working?

Priorities need to be examined here...

Agreed. But do you think the current administration will deal with it
in any way that will
result in energy self-sufficiency? Heck, Shrub thinks "intelligent
design" (which is just "creationism in a cheap tuxedo") is real science
- but that global warming isn't.

How much are *you* willing to change, spend, and give up for energy
independence?