Val Kraut wrote:
Let's look at some basic history.


Sure, let me know when you get started.


In the 1950s and 1960s we pushed science and engineering, lots of
students were graduated:

Umm, I wouldn't agree on the 1950s... at least not until after Sputnik. You
might recall a little scare back then.


Then came the nuclear test ban treaty - and many high tech businesses
including electrical equipment houses bit the dust.

Really? I still see quite a few companies out there. Care to provide
specific examples? A company going out of business is correlation, not
causation, so please cite proof.


Then we cancelled Apollo, cancelled the supersonic transport etc and
there was mass uneployment on the technical fields. They even made a
movie with George Kennedy as a surplused engineer called An American
Tragedy.

Again, provide examples.


Then there were the students who got advanced degrees in Nuclear
Engineering - only to see the Nuclear energy field close to new
designs.
Then there the students who did the graduate work in high energy
physics - only to see Star Wars end.


And funny, I know folks who were grad students then who are researchers now
in high energy physics. Star Wars didn't seem to end their jobs.


Then there were the students who did graduate work in particle
physics only to have the supercollider terminated.

The promise of $10 Million shuttle launch costs created illusions of
space power stations, large space structures. nuclear tugs - we
hired. we studied, then the big layoff

We did? Oh come off it. Most people in the industry knew the numbers were
BS from day one.


There was joke at one time - If your cab driver in San Francisco was
wearing sandles - he had a Phd in high energy physics.

The list goes on and on.

Anyone can talk about anecdotes. The plural of anecdote is not data.


Few of the really high tech projects last form entry in college to
exit with an advanced degree.

We send kids to NASA space Camps, do high school technical programs,
but it ends there - a great empty promise.

We constantly talk about graduating more technical folks - but do
nothing to make the fields stable or that profitable as compared to
business degrees.
I'm not saying we need make work jobs to keep the technical folks
employed - but the simple goal of making more technical graduates
without knowing how or if they may be used is insane to say the least.

and the relationship to this thread is - Bolden go entice kids into
technical fields where the enticement usually features manned space
as a centerpiece - and oh by the way shut down manned space and go
make the Muslims feel good about their ancestors.

--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.