Do NASA scientist have the ability to help Americans become independent of oil?

Question

if we didn't need their oil so badly, could we stay out of their economic business?

i think nasa scientist are probably brillant, could they focus on solar, geothermal, wave, wind, methane,magnetics,gravity,..., or are those fields so far from theirs that they could not?

my life seems to be better when i mind my own business. when others have such different values and laws and if they watch our television programs they may think we are all heatherns, and then if out of greed, we get in their economics?

if we could live in peace, seems like we could then have a even more awesome space program.

Answer 1

In response to the question:  do we have the ability to help?  Yes.  And some NASA folks are contributing to this situation.  However, it's not NASA's primary mandate so that's not what most of the agency is working on.

Philosophy aside, oil is just another commodity when you look at it.  The US and many other nations have built a whole economic system around it, however, and that's why oil prices going up or supply problems are so scary.  Reality is that there's only so much oil down there and some day soon it's going to run out.