New Cold War... no, not because of the suburban spies

With the capitalist markets of the West on the verge of perpetuating their own crash, and with China gaining new supporters and growing bolder by the day, we are looking at a New Cold War; this time, between the capitalists and state-capitalists, and things are not looking to be in our favor. We are facing an opponent with comparable technology, better education, more citizens, fewer rules, cheaper labor, a more stable economic model, less civil unrest, dangerous friends who do not like us, and whom we are funding with the interest on our debt and a vast trade imbalance.

What happened in the last cold war? There was a lot of military posturing between countries only loosely established to be enemies, covert missions, secret pacts, and (the only real benefit) a space race! Back to the present time, it appears, at least for now, that China is mostly satisfied with an economic takeover, leaving the majority of the military posturing and secret pacts to their neighbors and friends. But where is our parallel to the space race? The last space race created NASA whose accomplishments filled us with a sense of security, pride, and optimism as we put a man on the moon. It also brought countless innovations to the public market (memory foam, velcro, scratch resistant lenses, long distance telecommunications, etc.). But where is our space race, you ask? We have all the other traits of two fundamentally incompatible models, but where's the urgent goal and peaceful form of competition?

The next urgent technology race and matter of national security is freedom from oil! Rather than spending millions on providing internet to the remote towns in S. Dakota, let's setup a 'get us the hell of of oil' science association (GUTHOOOSA). Let's draw some completely unattainable line in the sand, say reduce our oil per capita oil consumption by 50% by the year 2025, and let's achieve the impossible! Projects could include individualized solar or wind powered hydrogen production units that would be distributed to gas stations across the country. We could do the same thing with bio-diesel generators, along with a network of collection agencies to gather used oil from fast food restaurants (yes, you can make bio-diesel with that). Also, now that the government has a controlling interest in some of the major car companies we could steer them toward the technologies we plan to develop, to take some of the gamble out of the game. Some companies such as BMW already have a hydrogen fuel cell car FOR SALE and waiting for the supporting infrastructure, but most others are waiting to see which technologies will catch on. We can take out that mystery and get a head start on developing the market for both the cars and the machines that facilitate the transition.

Other projects could include various forms of energy capture such as vibrational energy capture, new applications of solar energy capture such as solar paint, see if we can extract power from photosynthetic plants. The possibilities are endless and I'm sure the best are yet unimagined, which is the whole point of having a NASA-like entity at the core of the operation. With NASA on a hiatus of sorts, we could keep many of those scientests and engineers on staff, as well as use NASA research facilities. Manufacturing could be done by under-utilized portions of the auto industry, distribution and services could possibly be privatized, and jobs would be coming out of the wood works!

The reason I want to bounce this idea off of everybody is, I don't know if the conservatives think this is too much like the Tennessee Valley Authority - which I'm under the impression you don't like because Reagan was against it in the 60's - even though it was created by a Republican, dutifully served its purpose of creating jobs in the recovery from the Great Depression, secured waterways and produced electricity in the Tennessee Valley, and after much deregulation and introduction of competition it has become a profitable entity. I honestly have a very difficult time forecasting what conservatives will and will not like. Do you guys like NASA for that matter, at least old school NASA? I'm kind of under the impression this could ONLY work if a popular Republican were to propose it.

If you know of a better way to bolster American pride, generate jobs, kick start a generation of technology, and show off the power of capitalism, I'd like to hear it.