As a relative layman, doesn't the interest from Google / NASA / Lockheed give some merit to their claims? Or at least move it from the 'PT Barnum' scale to some other speculative-but-feasible technology scale?
No. Once some entity has a lot of money to spend, it invests it in various directions "just in case it might work." It's inevitable process, as soon as there are a lot of people making decisions (or even a small number of them, when it reflects their preferences). The money is invested in very weird stuff and then even get to be used, "because it's there" even if it's not really what it claims to be.
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As a relative layman, doesn't the interest from Google / NASA / Lockheed give some merit to their claims? Or at least move it from the 'PT Barnum' scale to some other speculative-but-feasible technology scale?
No. Once some entity has a lot of money to spend, it invests it in various directions "just in case it might work." It's inevitable process, as soon as there are a lot of people making decisions (or even a small number of them, when it reflects their preferences). The money is invested in very weird stuff and then even get to be used, "because it's there" even if it's not really what it claims to be.