Publicly-funded space agencies remain critical for helping humans understand the universe despite the rapid advancements by private space firms in recent years, they said.
JUSTIFYING PUBLIC FUNDING
“We’re very much looking at the basics, it’s very difficult to make a profit out of it,” said Professor Mark McCaughrean, senior advisor for science and exploration at the ESA.
“So in the same way that you would fund an opera house or a theatre, or other things that are ‘cultural’, what we do in the science programme at ESA is very much in that domain.”
Source: CNA
