Re: It was....
Was talking to someone this week who whilst having a research background is actually an accountant for a government R&D division. His biggest problem is that the items with the biggest returns are normally those that are going to cost a huge amount and/or have a very small chance of success.
Naturally governments dont like paying R&D to fail as it makes for difficulties come election time.
Hence the majority of the R&D tends to be on more "safe" ideas where there is a higher chance of a payback.
I can imagine the situation back in the 40's with the Dambusters. There was limited resources, limited funding - and they wanted to try something new - the bean-counters would have simply gone....
20 x new bouncing bombs + all new tooling etc to make them (and will they work) vs 1500 existing type bombs (which we know work).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
