I noticed an obituary in the Washington Post today for Richard Whitcomb. The title of his obituary was "His Discovery Forever Changed Jet Design. The picture that accompanied the obit had the caption "In a high-speed NASA tunnel, Richard Whitcomb examines a model of a jet that demonstrates some of his engineering innovations."
Richard Whitcomb "changed the way we fly today wit three design innovations that made airplanes fly farther and faster using less fuel.
His contributions, for which he won the most prestigious prize in aviation, focused on a plan's efficiency cutting through air at speeds approaching the sound barrier..."
"Mr Whitcom made improvements to wings, and how they attach to the fuselage to lessen the amount of drag on the airplane."
As a young and obscure engineer in 1951 with a NASA predecessor, the Hampton-based National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, Mr. Whitcomb made a discovery so simple yet so radical that it forever changed jet design."
So did who did the research on this wonderful discovery, the private sector? No, it was an employee of a government agency. Conservatives love to blast government spending as wasteful, but is is anything but. All of us know who much government spending helps the country and the economy and this is just one of the lesser-known examples of this. Is there waste? Sure. But a lot of good comes out of it. We need to constantly cite examples like this one.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...