Space toys and exploration are fun for those working on them, but will this event transform civilisation? Nope. Did the moon landing really transform civilisation? Nope.
What about all those scientists who learned to build rockets, who would later go on to help NASA launch the first weather satellites? What about the work done that led to the formation of the global positioning system? Are you sure it would have happened in the same timeframe by some other actors if NASA hadn't gone to the moon? Where would the scientists have gotten their training? What would have been the economic rationale for doing it?
Remember, too, that the moon landings were not scientific exploration. It was a military operation to prove supremacy. The russians put a man in space one month earlier, so Kennedy basically said "Yeah? you put a man in space? well we'll drop one on the Moon and then bring him back!"
It was an insane commitment to proving our supremacy. We sent fighter jet pilots on the first several missions, and didn't send a single scientist until several missions in.
Meanwhile, exploring the origins of comets helps us understand how the early solar system formed, which helps us understand how the universe formed, which helps us understand physics at a fundamental level, which helps us make better microchips, solar panels, and superconductors that make the tech in our world better at serving our needs.
It has nothing to do with "fun for those working on them", though I'm sure they have fun. Truck drivers probably have some fun too, but that doesn't mean delivering goods isn't worthwhile for legitimate economic reasons. Hard science is the same - it costs relatively little and the payoff, while abstract, is huge.
If you want to complain about spending, complain about military spending. In the US it is 70X NASA's budget, and 2x the military budget at the beginning of 2001. THAT is bloat. We know how to manufacture bombs. Making more doesn't do much for innovation. Funding science does.
"We Stopped Dreaming - Episode 1": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbIZU8cQWXc
"We Stopped Dreaming - Episode 2": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFO2usVjfQc
Simply put, Rosetta's budget was about 70m Euros per year over 20 years. That's like funding maybe two schools, or one hospital ward, spread over the whole EU. None of these enrich humanity as much as Rosetta is.
As for employment, well, the project is creating exactly the right sort of jobs for the European economy - that money is being spent in Europe, helping to usefully occupy the European aerospace industry, and thereby keeping engineers and scientists in work.
Really? You're basically saying you'd prefer a robot on a comet over thousands of healthy and educated peers. Who are you to decide this?
Coming from an American this is pretty ironic. The choice in ESA-funding countries isn't between two schools and illiterate children, it's between further improvement to two good schools already affording excellent social mobility and a comet landing.
As for who decides this, the voters do as part of the democratic process.
And that's more than enough reason in itself.
Welcome to democracy.
http://www.nasa.gov/50th/50th_magazine/benefits.html for some. A comment above has many others listed.
But most importantly it bothers me that you think that risking a relatively small amount of money to expand our limits is not important. IF it were a "showoff" mission or a re-enactment of the moon landing, i would agree with you but this is about going into unknown territory. When Columbus set off to find a short path to the Indies, i bet someone would think the money was frivolously spent, but this guy never made it to the history books.
If you insist that we shouldn't take risks like this, you are literally asking the civilization to stop.
Also let not forget that NASA only represent 0.5% of the US federal budget. Do you really want to lower your federal tax by 0.5%? Seriously? Please lower your entertainment budget, stop alcohol and coffee consumption and donate all that money to a charity. If you actually believe that 0.5% should be put somewhere else because you doesn't believe they really transform civilization, then all that money that you use would probably be better somewhere else too.
Why don't I donate all to NASA? Because I never said that it was worth our money more than something else that worth more than what my entertainment is worth. (Sorry if it a little hard to understands, english isn't my first language, I'm still working on it).
Also I never said that it has so much potential, I'm curious to know where you found this in my comment. What I said is barely enough to said that it can actually compete against his alternative, I was really counting on the fact that it was only representing 0.5% of the budget to make it seems worthwhile.
EDIT: Hopefully you still haven't read this comment, I found a better way to explain what I said.
He said that it wasn't worth it because it doesn't really transform civilization.
I said that it was clearly worth its 0.5% of the funding.
I also said that if it's not worth it because it doesn't really transform civilization, how could his own budget can be justified (and to avoid him answering that in a way, his job does transform civilization enough to be worth his salary, I only included expense that could be avoided without affecting too much his job).
The point is that the criteria for the State/government doesn't have to be the same as the criteria for personal expenses.
What. The first two sentences of your comment:
> Does space exploration has the potential to transform civilization? Yeah it actually does.
I was just using a similar argument, to show that they're both flawed.