I don't know, high energy/particle physics has had this issue for a while, and it seems to be doing alright and attracting plenty of new minds into the fray. To

I don't know, high energy/particle physics has had this issue for a while, and it seems to be doing alright and attracting plenty of new minds into the fray. To be honest, "small astronomy" probably is likely to have a lot more value than the various small fusion experiments people build too (and those are still very cool).