Science give us knowledge rooted in hard evidence, science give us models that can be reused as is or used to refine other models. The article mentions how hard it is to monitor atmosphere at 60-80km because it is too high for weather balloons and too low for satellites, now they are doing something about it.

Money spent on science is not a waste of money, even if science come with a negative answer. If you want to find ways to slash wasteful spending, I'd urge you to look at wars: these are really eat a lot of money and give nothing back.