It's fairly easy to estimate. Assuming an average salary of about 50k between a grad student, a postoc, and a PI (a typical mix for a scientific publication), o

It's fairly easy to estimate. Assuming an average salary of about 50k between a grad student, a postoc, and a PI (a typical mix for a scientific publication), one only needs to ask how long it took them to do the work. Estimating about 6 months with a 3x infrastructure multiplier, I get about $225k. This is of course giving you the benefit of the doubt that you were actually wondering, and not passive-aggressively implying the government should not fund basic scientific research. Which is understandable, because that's a ridiculous position for an educated person to articulate explicitly.