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> The ISS has cost more than $150 billion so far.

The UK's "High Speed 2" project is currently budgeted to cost about $125 billion for its ~300mi extent. I very much do hope that everyone involved is asking themselves hard questions about whether this expense is justified by whatever has been gained in return. The UK is not a magical la-la-land where people have the right to piss away truckloads of public money on projects they feel are important, simply by virtue of invoking vague platitudes about the "need to reduce journey time from 71 to 52 minutes".

The ISS seems like a bargain.

And people only looking at the ISS as a "science experiment" are seriously misunderstanding the social impacts as well, especially when it comes to operations that span multiple countries and the relations between them. It's a public spot of cooperation that helps us not only when it comes to science, but when it comes to agree with each other.

Science spending is small in comparison to the the subsidies that get handed out every year to just the banking industry

> The ISS has cost more than $150 billion so far.

Wow, a whole three "midlife crisis ceo twitter buyouts".

It'd be cathartic if our kids referred to a gigantic financial blunder in the billions of dollars as pulling an "Elon".

It's also about curiosity and fun. The public can fund something they find interesting for the sake of it.