The premise of this article seems to be that since the government funding of scientific research has bore fruits, then it must be justified. The ole saying "a b

The premise of this article seems to be that since the government funding of scientific research has bore fruits, then it must be justified. The ole saying "a blind squirrel finds an acorn every once in a while" comes to mind. It's worth entertaining the idea that public funding displaces private funding (at a net loss). Burt Rutan makes this argument in his Ted talk on the space industry (http://www.ted.com/talks/burt_rutan_sees_the_future_of_space.html http://www.ted.com/talks/burt_rutan_sees_the_future_of_space...). In college I came across "The Economic Laws of Scientific Research" by Terence Kealey. It's a great read for anyone interested.