17bn is more or less NASA's budget if you suddenly want to discuss the European scientific budget with America as a baseline. It's also more than two times the

17bn is more or less NASA's budget if you suddenly want to discuss the European scientific budget with America as a baseline. It's also more than two times the budget of the ESA (European Space Agency) 17bn is casually the yearly R&D budget of the top 10 MedTech companies combined. MedTech is a field with immediate commercial and industry value in improving people's lives. https://www.statista.com/statistics/329064/global-medtech-research-and-development-spending-in-top-20-companies/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/329064/global-medtech-re... This is a single scientific project with the possibility of finding nothing new within a field of science that currently lacks commercial or industrial value outside of curiosity. And we're building it on the promise that "we may find something new" while lacking any established theory that would benefit from the higher energy level. This is NOT chump change, and Using the American defence budget as a comparison is tone-deaf.