Dear batesy80:
Because the military is not bound by a need to turn a profit or other
commercial interests and commands substantial funding, the military
can afford to pursue projects that are risky because they require
significant technological advancement in order to be feasible. The
military tends to be more interested in pure performance as opposed to
a price/performance ratio, which encourages technological advancement
even if it is too expensive for the result to be, at least initially,
commercially appealing. For these reasons, the military funds a lot
of research and development including basic research, which typically
leads to the most dramatic advances, but which also typically takes
longer to commercialize and may have no obvious commercial value. In
contrast, companies are increasingly focused on applied research and
development to generate advances with near-term commercial potential
to satisfy shareholders with short time horizons.
"The Federal Government has historically provided the majority of
funding for basic research, supporting 60.5 percent of all basic
research and 63.5 percent of the basic research performed by
universities and colleges in 2003. Industry devoted only a projected 5
percent of its total R&D support to basic research in 2003,
representing 17 percent of the national total for basic research.
Basic research generally involves a high degree of uncertainty in
terms of both technical success and commercial value."
"The Federal Government generally invests in the development of
products for which it is the only consumer, such as tactical nuclear
weapons and space exploration vehicles. The Federal investment in
development is dominated by the Department of Defense, which invests
85 percent of its R&D funds in development."
"U.S. R&D Projected to Have Grown Marginally in 2003" by Brandon
Shackelford, InfoBrief, Science Resources Statistics, National Science
Foundation
http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/infbrief/nsf04307/start.htm
Search Terms: R&D spending United States |
