Talk:Futures studies

Thanks, Meg...

For extending this. Around 1968, in what was one of my first part-time jobs in college, I worked for a consultant to the U.S. Office of Naval Research, with the job of looking through the basic research they had funded and identifying potential or confirmed Hahn-Strasseman points. My work was buried in some government reports I have absolutely no idea how to find, but I do remember some of the results.

For example, they funded basic research in chemistry in the fifties, leading to a class of compounds called nitropolymers. In the separate field of developing guided missiles, specifically solid propellant rocket motors of high energy to weight, the field stalled until there could be a Hahn-Strasseman point in fuel chemistry. Submarine-launched ballistic missiles were not feasible until propellants with the energy of nitropolymers became available. The Navy actually had been unaware, at first, that one of their research programs had been the necessary breakthrough for their development of the UGM-27 Polaris missile.

Is this a "topic informant" or simple expert experience source for the article? Howard C. Berkowitz 12:10, 26 October 2009 (UTC)