The term science driver is used by economists to describe a major research project, often started by the central government, which addresses a specific scientific and technological challenge. Such a challenge has the effect of initiating a spread technological advances throughout the economy as a whole.
An example of such a project would be the Apollo Program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which according to some estimates, put between $11 and $21 into the U.S. economy for every federal dollar invested. NASA was given the specific mandate of putting a man on the moon, but in the process of solving the technical hurdles of creating a vehicle that could safely transport humans there, research was done on miniaturization, new materials, and many other frontier areas of technology, leading to new applications such as personal computers, and the artificial heart.
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