Scientists are people too! What's wrong with feeding them? You can also see any research facilities and space programs as a cheap jobs program that keeps employ

Scientists are people too! What's wrong with feeding them? You can also see any research facilities and space programs as a cheap jobs program that keeps employed the people building them (scientist are really underpaid compared to software engineers, lawyers etc....), doing research in there and all the people that build anything that these people use. It's also subsidizing the high precision research and development that private companies do to be able to provide the tools used by these research facility (thought to a much lower extend than military programs), which in turns should lower the cost of producing high precision doodads you put on your wrist or your pocket.