In the past, the US had made bold efforts to lead the world on nuclear fission, space exploration, telecom, internet, military tech, etc. Aside from accomplishing their primary goals, those all spawned countless spinoff technologies that have been an economic windfall for us since WWII. Now, the US has scaled back it's investments in technology. We rely on Russians for manned space flight, we are shuttering fusion labs, we passed on the LHC, and we are grounding our most high tech air superiority fighter program. It seems we have become content with following for the sake of short-term expediency. Recently, [url=http://www.nature.com/news/south-korea-makes-billion-dollar-bet-on-fusion-power-1.12251]South Korea announced a huge commitment to their own fusion research[/url], in addition to their heavy support of ITER, an international fusion project in France. While the US will be a minority partner in both projects, [url=http://www.nature.com/news/us-fusion-in-budget-vice-1.11061]the money for it comes out of our domestic fusion budget[/url]. We are choosing to take a back seat on the forefront of technology. Patents created in the process, and spinoff technologies of discoveries made, won't be ours, like they were during the Manhattan project or the space race. With Fusion being the closest thing to a silver bullet to cleanly and safely meet energy demands well into the future, it seems like something the as important as developing the atomic bomb or going to the moon, and worth a similar effort we gave those. I worry that by choosing not to lead on something like this, we are throwing away all the incalculable economic benefits that come with discovery and invention. I understand that investing in research is expensive, long term, and not a sure thing, so it isn't the easiest thing to do. However, I think so far, the benefits have been worth the high price tag. What do you think?