Zak Ali The prompt: Technical innovation clearly drives scientific discovery in astronomy but the reverses are

also true. For example, newton made his discoveries in part because he wanted to explain the motions of planets but his discoveries had far reaching effects on our civilization. Congress often must make decisions between funding programs with purely scientific purposes (basic research) and programs designed to develop new technologies. If you were a member of congress how would you allocate spending between basic research and technology? Why? Research Is a Cancer The money we have should be spent on new technologies rather than basic research. When we continue to spend money on basic research without any further developments we have a problem. The money spent towards research can be used for more purposeful uses. Such as creating new technologies that will help our country grow economically. There is much more benefit to creating new technology rather than funding basic research. Basic research has no use other than for scientific purposes. We place too much priority for this research, when we should instead use the money towards something more purposeful. In fact, I believe much of the money used to fund NASA is a waste. We gain no benefit from knowing if other intelligent life exists in the universe. 40 billion dollars is wasted these type of fruitless research with no real get-back. We would be better off creating technology that can help feed world hunger, which could cleanse dirty water or make homes. Maybe some time in the future we will be able to waste billions on scientific research. But for now we should stick to things guaranteed to help human beings. This is why I believe we should government funds on creating helpful new technology rather than basic scientific research at least for now.