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Integrated circuits (developed by NASA) are far more advanced than vacuum tube dealees

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yeah good point.

and I think it is important to see that once a vacuum tube computer got going, it was only a matter of time until IC circuits and stuff, there was kinda a technology track. gov speeded the timeline up byh throwing money at it. I'm saying solar nanotech, from what I've read, is very similiar in that it is in it's infancy, but the tech track is there and there's no doubt that it will get done, just when. so if the gov wants to throw money it might be able to speed up the timeline, *if gov feels it is important to do so*, like if man made global warming were real.

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Just to point out a few things about the semiconducter. First of all it's silly IMO to believe that if we had no government research we wouldn't have the semiconducter. Second of all computer technology advances were brought about by the private sector. Third of all we don't know that government resources were allocated in the most effecient manner in developing this technology. It may not have even been close to the most effecient allocation of resources. In fact it's possible that resources were allocated so poorly that the private sector would have come up with this technology far sooner. Don't know, probably not, but a possibility.