h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Why does the goverment fund abstract research into subjects such as high energy astrophysics, extra-galactic astronomy and cosmology, when people are still dying from cancer and there are so many homeless people?
(Don't get me wrong, I'm an astrophysicst-in-training, but i need excuses as to why i am doing this course, and why any research i do afterwards should be funded - I though someone might be able to give me an answer!)
ta for any help!!

Methinks 'coz the homeless problem will probably not return a high yield from investment, and the medical research companies have sucked all the funding available for the cure for cancer.

Cynical? Moi??

There is always a bottom and a top in things like this. The poor etc are the top, the space science and so on at the bottom, if you like. If you spent all your resources on say homeless people then perhaps the nexts set of people lacking would be people without cars: Carless people. What about cancer I hear you ask...I couldn't carless.

i think its done that way, for the same reasons rome wanted the collosium.
to give the appearance of the dramatic, when nothing really changes, or if it does, normaly for the worst.

Hehe, I feel the same way sometimes Red.

I would say that studying astrophysics tells us things about the laws of nature, and the behaviour of elementary particles. Because we can see how they behave in conditions we can´t replicate here on Earth. And knowing such things could help us make better medical equipment, like MRI and CAT scanners that again can help us diagnose cancer.

I hope that helps you Red, if you are still here 5 years later

Blimey this might be the oldest shortest thread there is!

which is such a shame, in a place like this i thought it would be one of the most important, hence the resurection.