Rush Holt Talks R & D & Jobs on Maddow

by: Rosi Efthim

Fri Oct 14, 2011 at 11:57:15 AM EDT

Now, we have video of the scientist congressman talking with Rachel Maddow about what the military has achieved, even in unexpected areas like breast cancer, ovarian and prostate cancer research.

Holt comes in at the 5:17 mark, but it's worth watching Maddow's opening to see the scary-cool thing the Roomba people make for the military, and the difference between what's new in the kind of new car you can get soon vs, the kind of new car the Army gets. And aircraft the size of bugs.

What's new in military whizbang vastly outstrips what private industry has done. You're paying for it; it's public investment. The question is, can we learn anything from the way investment in R & D has fueled the leaps forward in military equipment innovation? And are there jobs in that?

Yeah, there's an ad I can't scrub. Sorry. Calculate digits of pi in your head. Or plan dinner.

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