Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey has served in Congress for a decade, but he’s not your average politico. The physicist is a five-time Jeopardy champion, an inventor of a solar collector, an arms-control expert and a former assistant director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. He likes to pop into science conferences so that he can drop terms like “impedance matching” and not catch weird stares.
The US became the dominant power in the world by putting huge amounts of money into R&D and becoming more technologically advanced than the rest of the world. Recent administrations have cut those funds and allowed the rest of the world to catch up. In order to stay ahead and stay in power the US needs to continue to give those R&D programs the funds they need... and Holt is not saying to get rid of the missile defense system, he’s saying to pump money into R&D so that they can create a missile defense system that works.
Stay up to date on the latest news of the future of science and technology from your iPhone with full articles, images and offline viewing
Featuring every article from the magazine and website, plus links from around the Web. Also see our PopSci DIY feed
Share links with friends, comment on stories and more
In our December issue, Popular Science names the 100 best innovations of the year: bombproof wallpaper, self-parking cars, the fastest helicopter, and 97 more. Plus inventor profiles and videos.
Check out the best of what's new here.