[onion2k]

Incredible that the age we live in, we section off large swaths of land just so we can read radio waves from planets so distant we will likely never visit them.

We're not looking for places to visit. The reason we do space science (and lots of other fields of science) is that the more fundamental knowledge we have about the universe, the closer we can get to understanding how the universe is the way it is, and that makes it more likely that we'll be able to solve problems we have here on Earth.

Ignoring the fundamentals, the desire to do astronomy has lead to more than a few useful inventions. Figuring out how the sun works is the basis for our research in to fusion, which could lead to solving humanity's energy problems forever. The charge-coupled device in every camera in every smartphone was originally developed for astronomy. GPS only works because we can use satellites to track deep space objects. Aperture synthesis in MRI scanners (combining several images in to one image the size of all the cameras combined) came from combining the results from telescopes together.

A big field in Australia is a tiny price to pay for what the SKA could come up with.

[DanBC]

I read it as "this is a good thing, an incredibly good thing, that we devote land to pure science".

[steve19]

Many things result in technology being developed. War, for example, creates vast amounts of technology (including rocket technology, satellite etc) , but that is not a good reason to engage in warfare.

[onion2k]

That's not the same thing at all. The benefits of a destructive pursuit don't make it a more attractive thing to do. They're in opposition to the negatives of the original action. The side effects of a constructive pursuit do make it a more attractive thing to do because they are in addition to the already positive result of the original action.

[steve19]

I don't disagree! In fact I firmly believe that the ends never justifies the means.

But I wonder how many people would consider a major war to be beneficial if it lead to real fusion ie. limitless clean energy for the world, the end of energy poverty, of nuclear fission, and end of global warming.