[ekianjo]

> with a pretty great return in research, engineering and education to boot.

If a company could spend 24B in research they would probably produce a lot more things than NASA

[allenrb]

Absolutely! Think of the many new ways to display advertising that are being neglected while we foolishly launch people and things into space.

[eru]

Well, NASA itself is a good counterexample here:

NASA could do a lot more good science, if they didn't (have to) launch primates into space.

[ekianjo]

The track record of NASA sending stuff to space is pretty bleak

[tikhonj]

Google's R&D budget is like $60B. Make of that what you will.

[eru]

Of course, that's partially a tax optimisation.