We do not spend anything like enough on pure scientific research.
Fusion research, much medical research, driverless cars research, just about all space research are all examples of, for the most part, engineering/technological problem solving. Very little new science is involved.
LUCA, the stuff going on at CERN and fermilab, all astronomy and cosmology is pure blue sky research, with no obvious commercial payback in sight. But then, who would have predicted in the '30s that the work of Heisenberg and the other pioneers of quantum mechanics would lead directly to solid state electronics, lasers etc.?
The mathematician Hardy once stated:
"I have never done anything "useful". No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world."
He was referring to pure mathematics. Yet it was pure mathematics which cracked the enigma and tunny codes. It is pure mathematics which gives us encryption algorithms which make Internet commerce possible. It is pure mathematics which first laid the foundations of programmable computers.
The point I am trying to make is that pure research, in and of itself, is the noblest of human endeavours, and as such should be nurtured and funded. And blue sky research has a knack of leading directly to technological revolutions of stupendous commercial value.
Chris