Are we crazy enough?

How do you decide what's fringe science, and what's a revolutionary breakthrough? The answer, in all its shades of grey, is the topic for this offbeat post from defencetech.org:

Crazy enough?

They outline 3 revolutionary technologies (rockets, jet engines and death-rays ..er.. radar), and the huge resistance they had breaking into mainstream thought (including the New York Times telling rocket pioneer Robert Goddard that rockets couldn't work in a vacuum, and to learn some high school physics... After they landed a man on the moon NYT published an apology. Moral of the story: don't believe newspaper science).

Rocketman Robert Goddard

With hindsight its easy to recognize the success these guys had. Which makes them revolutionaries, instead of whackos. How can you tell the difference without the benefit of hindsight?

Does all revolutionary technology have to come from outside the mainstream?

A case in point is the atomic bomb. It was generally accepted by mainstream scientists (including Einstein) that the concept was quite feasible. Obviously a huge amount of work went into it, but it is one example of a revolutionary technology coming from the culmination of mainstream thought.

In short, the issue is clouded. Lets just hope the whackos keep getting some funding though, you just never quite when the revolution is gonna kick you in the pants.