User:Lightning1115/SciencePolicy

Basic versus applied research
The programs that are funded are often divided into four basic categories: basic research, applied research, development, and facilities and equipment. Translational research is a newer concept that seeks to bridge the gap between basic science and practical applications.

Basic science attempts to stimulate breakthroughs. Breakthroughs often lead to an explosion of new technologies and approaches. Once the basic result is developed, it is widely published; however conversion into a practical product is left for the free market. However, many governments have developed risk-taking research and development organizations to take basic theoretical research over the edge into practical engineering. In the U.S., this function is performed by DARPA.

In contrast, technology development is a policy in which engineering, the application of science, is supported rather than basic science. The emphasis is usually given to projects that increase important strategic or commercial engineering knowledge. The most extreme success story is doubtless the Manhattan Project that developed nuclear weapons. Another remarkable success story was the "X-vehicle" studies that gave the US a lasting lead in aerospace technologies.

These exemplify two disparate approaches: The Manhattan Project was huge, and spent freely on the most risky alternative approaches. The project members believed that failure would result in their enslavement or destruction by Nazi Germany. Each X-project built an aircraft whose only purpose was to develop a particular technology. The plan was to build a few cheap aircraft of each type, fly a test series, often to the destruction of an aircraft, and never design an aircraft for a practical mission. The only mission was technology development.