A second "big idea" . . .

[flamin lib]

I wrote a few days ago about universal health care. (http://journals.democraticunderground.com/flamin%20lib) A big idea that’s time, if not already here, is fast approaching. Here’s another big idea.

In 1961 I was a freshman in high school but I remember seeing President Kennedy speak on a small black and white television. “I believe we must put a man on the moon and bring him safely back before the end of the decade . . . not because it is easy but because it is hard . . . “ The great success of that program wasn’t the few pounds of rocks brought back from the moon, it was the technology and industry created by doing something never done before. That program created the computer industry and powered the US economy for 40 years. Without Apollo Bill Gates would be working a retail counter selling slide rules. The inflation-adjusted cost of Apollo was $135 billion. The return on that investment in GNP is immeasurable.

It’s time for an Apollo Energy Program (AEP) to make our country energy independent within ten years. It is time to invest $135 billion in a NASA style program to make alternative energies cost effective and to create new energy sources and conservation systems that are yet to be dreamed of.

The technology exists today to build homes completely independent from the commercial energy grid in much of the country. Unfortunately it is too expensive to produce and maintain. Much of an AEP would go to perfecting manufacturing processes and establishing a supply grid for this technology. I can foresee these advances spinning off to other industries; bringing manufacturing jobs back to our shores.

When Apollo began, trajectories were calculated with a slide rule. Re-entry timing was done with a wristwatch. The splash down target was miles across. Today the space shuttle can choose which runway to touch down on. If we see our current energy technology as analogous to that, what would it look like after ten years of an Apollo Energy Program? How many new patents would be made available for entrepreneurs to exploit? What new companies would be formed and how many new jobs created?

Before our shortsighted congress critters canceled the Super Conducting Super Collider and before the first magnet was designed, when there was nothing but theoretical physicists sitting in cubicles thinking deep thoughts, improvements to magnetic imaging began saving lives because of improvements from that program.

Energy independence, clean air and water, fewer greenhouse gasses, a reversal of global warming and a burgeoning economy all for the paltry investment of a missile defense that can’t possibly work.

When you ask not what your country can do for you with tax cuts it is amazing what your country will do for you with new technology, new jobs, better life and, yes, a huge investment potential for those who have the money.

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. We could save the environment

and the economy at the same time if we put our minds to it.

Brazil is now energy independant. There is no good reason why we can't be in 10 years.

[flamin lib]

3. Yes, and we could begin exporting the technology!

That would help the trade imbalance and shore up the Dollar as well.

We have to begin investing in our country and our people.

[madokie]

7. we just have to remember that we can change things, seems like one of

the great lakes was void of any aquatic life back in the '60s and it is a teeming fishery today, the water clean enough to swim in. I read infisherman mag. back in the day and a lot of stories about what man did to the lakes and what man had done in cleaning them back up.

[madokie]

2. you betchie, just can't let the repukes have control

or it would be a flop, on purpose

[flamin lib]

4. Reagan killed alternative energy research. We could be 20

years ahead of where we are if not for him.

[madokie]

5. totally energy independent, full employment with good paying jobs

A national health plan that includes all, the list could go on and on. Reagan won the presidency with repuke dirty tricks, not honest debate. this WHIG are the same bunch of crooks who wanted the same things as they are creating now, way back in nixon and fords administrations, this is all planned and being executed right before our lying eyes.

[pinto]

6. Check out The Apollo Alliance:

http://www.apolloalliance.org/

The Apollo Alliance for Good Jobs and Clean Energy

The Apollo Alliance provides a message of optimism and hope, framed around rejuvenating our nation’s economy by creating the next generation of American industrial jobs and treating clean energy as an economic and security mandate to rebuild America. America needs to hope again, to dream again, to think big, and to be called to the best of our potential by tapping the optimism and can-do spirit that is embedded in our nation’s history.

In 1961, John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to send a man to the moon and return him safely home again within the decade. It was an audacious dare. The technology did not yet exist, but he marshaled the resources of a nation -- focusing public investment, research, science and technology education, worker training, and America’s industrial might on a common purpose. It was leadership toward a common positive goal and it worked. In less than eight years Neil Armstrong placed the first human footprint on the lunar surface, and President Kennedy to this day remains honored for his vision and as a leader of courage.

Now America has an Apollo project for the 21st century. Today the stakes are much, much higher. We face an economy hemorrhaging its highest paying and most productive jobs, cities falling apart with over a trillion dollars in unmet public investment in crumbling schools, transportation, and infrastructure. The middle class is increasingly insecure as career ladders are broken and not replaced in new service sector jobs. And on a global scale we face never before seen environmental disruption, rising social inequity, and the emergence of fundamentalist anger that threatens our very security. We need new leaders of vision, and a new unifying call to action.


The Apollo Alliance is a joint project of the Institute for America's Future and the Center on Wisconsin Strategy. The Apollo Alliance is a 501-c3 organization.

About the Alliance




Apollo Alliance National Steering Committee:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ruben Aronin, Global Green USA
Andrew Beebe, Energy Innovations
Robert L. Borosage, Institute for America’s Future
Dan Carol, The Cause Company
Maggie Fox, Sierra Club
Bracken Hendricks, Center for American Progress
Van Jones, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Mindy Lubber, CERES
Mark Ritchie, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Joel Rogers, Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS) *
Marco Trbovich, United Steelworkers of America (USWA)

* Designates Chair of the National Steering Committee

<much more at website>

http://www.apolloalliance.org/about_the_alliance/

[The_Warmth]

8. Do you think...

$135 Billion is enough funding for such an important project? A space frontier is one thing, but the multitude of benefits towards the environment, economy, dollar, and society are much greater than those created from Apollo.

I would suspect that the current businesses that are doing r/d into new energy are keeping to themselves (correct me if i'm wrong). How could we meld these groups together to share ideas, increase efficiency, and workforce?

K&R

Edit: Thanks for the above info, and I don't have enough posts to recommend :(

[flamin lib]

9. Yes, businesses trying to develop competitive technologies

keep to themselves. If they hope to recover the R&D they have to. That's why it is imperative that the Government organize and fund the R&D and make all the patents available to private enterprise.

100 people working independently can't compete with ten people working together.