[wastedhours]

True - it was probably a stretch to include it alongside the VC analogy, but CERN's also delivering projects with unsure outcomes a la most investments [0]. If they turned the LHC on for example and found precisely nothing of note, it'd have been a failed investment, but was certainly worth the punt.

I think one of the issues with space exploration for people is that it just feels so pointless and intangible - its perception so locked into the realms of sci fi that the act of trying feels more of an indulgent nod to starship fantasies and "space race" dick-waving than to realistic scientific progress.

[0] money the "whatabout" brigade say should go to cancer research, which too, is also an investment with unsure outcomes (and which usually helpfully ignore things like CERN's impact on cancer research with second order applications of other discoveries...)

[SiempreViernes]

Failed in terms of science spending maybe, but even if they found everything they wanted the intrinsic value of this new knowledge to society is not really valuable in the same sense that the steel needed for the construction is valued.

It is now more than 20 years since the top quark was discovered, has society profited enought from knowing the mass of the top quark that the Tevatron is paid off?

Or is this way of thinking of science funding just destructive?