> I find it difficult to actually justify spending that money on answering questions. There must be some tangible benefit.
Maybe they haven't been discovered yet. Application can lag theory or basic experiments for a very long time. Did the car come right after the wheel? Did the iPhone come right after Ohm's Law? Maybe this will aid comet/asteroid mining missions. Or optical image processing. Or orbit optimization for long solar system traverses. I think it's very shortsighted to pursue only research that has visible short-term benefits, because you could be missing out on countless innovations that are below the horizon. We can't predict the future. But I also think application is unnecessary, and that there is inherent value in understanding our world.
In any case, while I don't know how much the average European pays for ESA in taxes, I do know the average American pays something like a few bucks to fund NASA. So you're quibbling over the use of a tiny proportion of resources to answer some big questions.
Maybe they haven't been discovered yet. Application can lag theory or basic experiments for a very long time. Did the car come right after the wheel? Did the iPhone come right after Ohm's Law? Maybe this will aid comet/asteroid mining missions. Or optical image processing. Or orbit optimization for long solar system traverses. I think it's very shortsighted to pursue only research that has visible short-term benefits, because you could be missing out on countless innovations that are below the horizon. We can't predict the future. But I also think application is unnecessary, and that there is inherent value in understanding our world.
In any case, while I don't know how much the average European pays for ESA in taxes, I do know the average American pays something like a few bucks to fund NASA. So you're quibbling over the use of a tiny proportion of resources to answer some big questions.