Enlighten me?

I think that's what they're trying to do.

So was Jerry Falwell.

I'd like to know more before I buy in.

Well, the fundamental question is, "Will we eventually find practical uses for the results of scientific research that currently seem impractical?"

It's hard for me to answer that question: if we don't fund the research, we never gain any future benefits. Furthermore, I believe that there's value in making knowledge about the universe, even if that knowledge doesn't directly feed hungry children or house tornado victims. But as a scientist, it's hard for me to articulate why I believe that.

OK, here's a practical benefit. If dark matter doesn't exist, then our models for predicting the paths of celestial objects are almost certainly wrong. If our models for predicting the paths of celestial objects are wrong, then an asteroid could be headed straight for us!

Maybe we can use dark matter to build a better fighter jet. Nobody tell Bush, or next we'll be invading Space.

I meant to say "stealth jet". Makes the joke a little more realistic.

What were the practical, on-earth applications that came from the (seemingly, at the time) pie-in-the-sky moon race? How many of them could have been predicted before-hand?

Science for the sake of it is not necessarily a bad thing.

What were the practical, on-earth applications that came from the pie-in-the-sky moon race?

I don't have any idea. What were they?

Funding science is like funding art, it all adds to the bank of human knowledge no longer unconscious in the collective mind.
Whether this is worth the price i don't know enough to say but i'd rather have money go to human endeavour than, say, defense.
i'd like money to go to other places but if someone's life work gets dropped for a short term solution somewhere else--

Expanding theoretical horizons is worth some of the coins that get shuffled around.

Tang.

Seriously, though, muddgirl's got it: you can't know what you can do until you know your environment. We're on a tiny blue marble whipping around a star at 67,000 mph, and that star is spinning through the galaxy at 559,234 mph, and that galaxy is ripping along relative to the average velocity of the Universe at 1,342,161 mph.

We think. Because using those same values, the little probe we sent a few years back is not matching up with our model of our teeny tiny corner in the vastness of space. It's like being in a very small boat in a very large ocean and discovering that your compass is inexplicably off a bit. Fine and dandy if you don't mind floating around and dying a slow horrible death, but otherwise problematic.

I don't have any idea. What were they?

Off the top of my head, I'd say the number one advancement was the technology that made the PC I'm typing this on possible. Then you've got things like velcro and various insulation devices (ever used a space blanket while camping?) and freeze-dried food. If I had the time (and I might, later), I'd come up with a much more complete list. Let me just say that a lot of the tech that we take for granted these days is a direct result of the Apollo mission and its predecessors.

I thought that the more we understand dark matter, the better we understand the thinking of the current Administration. BUT SERIOUSLY, studying the structure of atoms led to the Atomic Bomb and exploring space led to Satellite TV. Okay, not good examples. How about Pure Science projects will keep brilliant minds busy who would otherwise get jobs a Microsoft? Yeah, I got nothin'.

Yeah, okay, I get all that. You all make good points.

I guess I'm crabby because they're considering spending that money right *now*, when all the other news is about how crappy things are, about how programs that help people *right now* are being defunded or discontinued.

I mean, I'm unemployed; I think I could seriously benefit from a flat screen TV and a Prius. But that doesn't mean it's smart for me to buy those things right now.

Also, PMS.

Tang

What were the practical, on-earth applications that came from the pie-in-the-sky moon race?

Well, I learned that old dudes will fuck you up.

It's not like arts and sciences funding is directly or will directly bankrupt the US, and furthermore the "intangibles of civilization" promote a strong and healthy economy, because they encourage US and foreign investors that the US is great! Spend money here!

Anyway, GOP whinging about "liberal budgets" is all just a decoy to hide the fact that we're spending $200 billion dollars this year on a fruitless, unjustified invasion of a foreign country.

Also, I don't know where that $1.5 billion number is coming from or what it covers - from skimming the report, I think that's cost of building the array, from the beginning of the design activity in the late 90s': that's actually pretty cheap.

In fact, the future cost to the project seems to stem from the fact that the US is discontinuing US space shuttle flights before the next space shuttle will be fully commissioned. This is partially due to the fact that the Bush Administration has already seriously cut the NASA budget.

If, as some theories suggest, Lost Island is the site of earthbound dark matter, I think your question is answered quite clearly... or, in the very least, it is answered with more questions.

I can think of some other possibilities as well, but few of them give you an excuse to buy a flatscreen TV to investigate.

Could anything practical ever come of it?

The answer is yes, but we probably don't know what it is yet. Even if nothing concrete comes of it, the questions, answers and measurements provided by Dark matter could be instrumental in provoking a new avenue of discovery that could have a more concrete application.

This happens all the time. Without Dewar spending huge amounts of money and blinding several lab assistants in his pursuit to make things a little colder, we wouldn't have MRI scanners.

We don't know what benefits discoveries will bring, but this shouldn't stop us from trying to make those discoveries.

So the question: Is there any sense in which this could be a strong investment? Could anything practical ever come of it? I guess I'm not scientifically astute enough to see it as anything other than a toy for nerds with access to grant money.

Let me try. Basic science is the foundation of any modern society. Without that no society could progress -- We would be at a complete standstill. Not all science has to be applied (i.e. a solution to an immediate problem). If we just carried out or funded science that targeted immediate problems, we would be building a society on a house of cards.

Example: Everyone loves hybrid cars. Engineers who build hybrid cars rely on hundreds of studies that had a purely academic goal (hypothetical example would be someone who spent 10 years and several hundred thousand dollars studying a chemical reaction in an applied chemistry lab. Did that person rationalize the study as "10 years from now, my research will form the basis of one major component of a hybrid car?" Probably not. )

Sure this is a lot of money that could be put to better use [save Darfur etc.]. But if we take money out of basic science, it will significantly impact our economy and only make things worse all around. My 2 cents.

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer cost $1.5 billion over ten years, and is the result of work by more than 500 scientists in 16 countries. It was proposed after the US canceled plans to build the Superconducting Supercollider. Finding dark matter (or nontrivial antiparticles) would rewrite physics textbooks and flesh out our picture of the early universe. Who knows what kind of benefits could spring from a fundamental shift in how we understand our universe?

Basic science and technology funding is less than one percent of the US federal budget.

It would suck to have this incredibly complicated and delicate instrument sit and gather dust because NASA won't schedule a shuttle mission to put it on the ISS. Seems like we'd just let the Russians do it with rockets, they seem really good at that.

Not every scientific experiment should have as its goal a product or process that can be sold to fund the next experiment. Basic research is a fundamentally good thing, and we should do more of it.

The basic research of the 1900's led to the development of useful things of today like nuclear power/weapons, lasers, computers, etc. Whether these things are good or not is another question. The applications only were found after the basic science was done. Not every bit of science ends up in your kitchen though. It's a crap shoot. But that doesn't mean we should stop looking in odd directions. Exactly the opposite.

Oh, and IMHO, manned space travel is a wasteful exercise in nationalism. It's not about science. Leave it to Bush to propose a man on Mars.

I'm pretty hardcore about the notion that a significant advance in our understanding of the universe (or our own selves) constitutes a fundamental change in the evolution of our collective being. When we learn something new, and that something changes or refines our understanding of our place in the grand scheme of things, we evolve.

Basic science and technology funding is less than one percent of the US federal budget.

Thanks BOP. I knew that, just needed a citation.

As a side note, I just figured that a recent paper I just had accepted cost a little over a million dollars. I spent about half of that (3 salaried positions for the last 4 years [only partially covering mine] + all of the research expenses), and the entire paper has no immediate application. Basic research is (mostly) unbiased and we need more of that.

There are two kinds of research: "basic research" and "strategic research".

"Strategic research" is research with a purpose, like finding out how to make a washing powder wash whiter.

"Basic research" is purely driven by curiosity. It has no other purpose.

However, big discoveries that change everything tend to come out of pure research. You can't deliberately look for really new things, because you don't know what they are.

And without basic research, strategic research eventually coasts to a halt. You'll get really efficient vacuum-tube radios, but no microchips because no scientists have been idly wondering about the electrical properties of semi-conductors. After all, semi-conductors can't be any use in electricity, since they're not good conductors and not good insulators.

Allegedly when the great scientist Michael Faraday was asked what by a politician what use electricity would ever be, his only reply was "Why, sir, there is every possibility that you will soon be able to tax it!"

Yet eventually, electricity did become something that benefited humanity.

c'mon, 'pupp: there might be some cool ingredients for fountain of youth cosmetics out there. Dontcha wanna live forever?