I'd rather have a billion dollars of art installments than another giant telescope. Or a billion dollars of art installments and a billion dollars of welfare, t

I'd rather have a billion dollars of art installments than another giant telescope. Or a billion dollars of art installments and a billion dollars of welfare, that'd still be much cheaper than the JWST alone. Are there any relatively recent societal benefits? These all seem 20+ years old. At first I was thinking it might be because NASA's budget got smaller since the 70s, but it's actually increased slightly. I think it's completely fair to see astrophysics as somewhat vain. The comparison to art is apt - it's essentially a luxury. And the fruits are somewhat of a bad defense, IMO. Besides satellite technology, they're basically side benefits, not something the money was actually spent for. Presumably if the same amount of money was spent on "make something useful to society" there would be higher yield to society than what we got from "get a rocket to the moon" and "make a better telescope". That being said, satellite technology is incredible and I'm glad we have it.