I figured that was the case for a lot of things we have developed, but it must surely be more efficient to not also have the military goals as part of the effort.

Actually, I think the best thing we can learn from the military would be how to organize and mobilize large numbers of people toward some goal. The same could be said for religion. Then it's down to choosing a good goal...

I've pondered what would happen if we could dedicate one weekend per month of sports to community improvement instead. Where I grew up, sports were a big part of life. Every weekend the many fields and venues were full of people working together (and competing). Just imagine if they could all be organized to put their energy (just one weekend per month) into goals that would benefit everyone in the area. Perhaps military command structures and communication processes could be of value here...

You have just discovered collectivism. Individualism sounds worse, but to my understanding is ultimately just an excess of enlightment, which is the better philosophy™.

I hope you're not thinking about forcing people into this - and if not, what's stopping you from just starting the initiative right now?

> I hope you're not thinking about forcing people into this

Of course not. Forcing people to volunteer is... not effective long term.

Anyway, I long since left that Texas city which gave me the idea. I know amateur and professional sporting happens all around, but I don't encounter it much (so I forgot about the idea until now). I'm onto other things, although I still think this is a good idea. I know some churches organize their members to do good community services periodically, so I don't think it's a stretch to imagine sporting communities to make a routine of doing the same.

Interesting. From brief googling, it sounds like there were similarities/synergies, but "literally a KH11" is going a bit far.

> Nobody knew at the time that Hubble was literally a KH-11 class telescope, but one pointed the other way. The mirror size and the ability to be carried in the shuttle was probably to get some synergies out of those two projects.

Along these lines, there's a lot of hearsay that the technology that enabled JWST's mirrors, sun shade, etc. to be folded up for launch and deployed once in space had already been developed for military satellites.

Yeah and the rockets that send the satellites are directly inherited from world war 2 designs

To be fair, many of the original rocketry enthusiasts (German Rocket Society) were interested in the concept because it could put man into space. It was co-opted by governments to apply the research to weapons. In essence the government was willing to fund their research. However, there were rocket scientists that wanted no part of it but they were coerced into it.