From: michael@janeandi.fsnet.co.uk   
      
   Hello Jonathan Thornburg,   
      
   Many thanks for your corrections, I found the facts interesting, but you   
   have taken me too literally. I wasn’t trying to suggest that the items I   
   mentioned where invented by the space industry, just that the space industry   
   has contributed to our better understanding of the physics of these products   
   and their evolution. That there is an invaluable, incalculable science   
   ripple down and perhaps up effect, a vertical drift. Space exploration   
   provides an excellent medium for some of the finest brains of humanity, the   
   opportunity to push out the boundaries of our knowledge, on   
   many subjects and their products. ‘Teflon’ is a product in a class of heat   
   resistant materials, micro wave ovens generate micro wave energy at a   
   frequency, I think, 2.54GHz, the resonance of water molecules. Both of these   
   physical   
   properties/understandings, are, I feel certain, make a   
   contribution and benefit from the space effort. In the same vain I should   
   also imagine that the now, ubiquitous, low cost digital cameras have   
   benefited from the development of CCDs for space applications. There is a   
   symbiotic relationship between space exploration and all our lives, just not   
   too many people realise it, perhaps they should. Though I also suspect that   
   I’m   
   preaching here to the already converted ;~)  regards, Michael.   
      
      
   "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply"   
    wrote in message   
   news:3v5sl6F13tnu9U1@individual.net...   
   > Michael Butler  wrote:   
   > [[supposed spinoffs from space exploration]]   
   >   
   > Teflon isn't a space spinoff.   
   >   
   >> Microwave ovens aren't a space spinoff.   
   >   
   > --   
   > -- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply"   
   >    
   >   Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),   
   >   Golm, Germany, "Old Europe"      http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html   
   >   "Space travel is utter bilge" -- common misquote of UK Astronomer Royal   
   >                                    Richard Woolley's remarks of 1956   
   >   "All this writing about space travel is utter bilge.  To go to the   
   >    moon would cost as much as a major war." -- what he actually said   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)