Without the funding they would do no R&D, the government is their customer. I am speaking about the aerospace industry specifically. The private sector you speak of depends on government dollars, they are indirectly employed by the government.
Chuck,
The military labs I know about employ contractors to do the real R&D. Now, I am sure there are exceptions, but by far the bulk of the new technology developed by the government is done through contracts with private enterprise.
________________________________ From: Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2012 6:32 PM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Mars exploration
Not strictly true, Brent, there are military labs that are engaged in R&D. To be fair, they exist because of preliminary work done by private industry. But the military does pick up where the grants fall-off, in many cases.
On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 5:55 PM, Brent Watson <brentjwatson@yahoo.com>wrote:
The government does not do R&D. The government funds SOME R&D. The actual work is done by private industry. I've been on both sides.
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