Well what do you know, a half-life like scenario could happen in Romania in the future. I'm talking about a resonance cascade, if anybody from earth obtains and puts an "alien" crystal in front of
this.
TL;DR? :
Romania[2011-2014]: IMA CHARGING MY LAZOR!
Romania[2015]: IMA FIRIN' MY LAZOR!
Romania[2016]: BLEOOH!
[EDIT] From what I understand by 2020 it will be fully functional. I'll be 27 years old then hmm...
[EDIT2] OH SHIT. I AM GORDON FREEMAN.
As an alternative, there's the following line of thought:
If we don't spend the billion dollars one year, then we don't get the billion dollars the next year. And if we don't get the billion dollars the next year, then we have to go and spend more money on lobbyists to get the lost chance to get a billion dollars the year after that. And nobody wants that, because then we might have to compete with other lobbyists. We could get into a bidding war, that's how democracy works! On the other hand, the nutcracker room here is a sure thing; I make fun of it, but in the long run it's probably faster AND cheaper just to build a giant nutcracker LASER, write it off and be done with it.