[Scribbler1]

Originally posted by Technosoul, I totally do not agree what human progress was effected by wars.  However I would agree that wars might have resulted in some inventions that were later were altered for private useages.

A few? A conservative estimate of the technological benefits we have which were made possible by war would be about (at least) 50%. Computers were originally used to calculate artillery trajectories. Your microwave oven is a direct offshoot of RADAR. You already KNOW where atomic energy began. Blood plasma for your next operation? The modern method of transfusion and the aforementioned plasma were developed for field hospitals in war zones.

How about everything we got from the space program and NASA? There wouldn't even BE a NASA without rockets, which were used as weapons for centuries, and the modern rocket was a spinoff of the German V2 missile. Without the military necessity of rockets, development would have been slowed to the point where we might be launching the Project Mercury rockets today! Remember, Alan Sheperd, the first American in Space rode atop a Redstone Rocket, an ICBM.

Just a small sample. You should watch James Burke's "Connections" program if it comes back on Cable.

But the same minds could have invented those things wihtout the wars (also).

Maybe, but that's just a guess, whereas what we have now because of wars is factual.

You cannot speculate however how human progress or culture would have progressed without such wars, for all you know Rome might have landed on the moon is a spaceship during the 1800s had not the Christian crusade destroyed their science culture with the dark ages. Technosoul.

Bad example. For all *I* know, it would have been impossible to do that. The Dark Ages did indeed put the brakes on scientific development, but there are materials and processes used in Space exploration (among other things) today which could not have existed back then. An educated guess would be much of what has been developed might have come about maybe 50 years earlier, but that's about it.

Also keep in mind the military is a unique customer and much of what they wanted was impractical for any other use at the time. It was only AFTER these things were developed for war that people found other uses for them and not the other way around. In other words, the military wanted BIG rockets to throw BIG bombs at people and it was only AFTER the big rockets were there that someone had the idea to use them to take people into space. If these same people had started from scratch and asked the government for billions of dollars over time to develop a missile that had ONLY one use, to take people into space, do you think our (or any) government would have funded it?