It won&#x27;t be the decision of people who actually do the work, but of the people upstairs who decide what research the agency is focusing on.<p>The entire trend around public agencies trying to earn their own living on the market seems increasingly ridiculous. The whole point of having government agencies in a market economy <i>at all</i> is to have someone do the work that is necessary but doesn&#x27;t make sense in market economy. Like feeding the poor, healing the sick, or doing basic research.<p>Agencies like NASA are one of two primary ways for society to tell the market: &quot;you&#x27;re a great optimization engine, but not perfectly aligned with our needs; sometimes you fail and we need to compensate - for instance, you rejected X, and yet we want X to be done&quot;. The other would be to become Elon Musk and keep shoving electric cars down market&#x27;s throat until it gives up and suddenly there&#x27;s a demand.<p>As Americans you can not - hell, as the world we can not afford agencies like NASA and ESA to drop basic research and pursue things that can be done by any random government contractor, but better, because said contractor would have less accumulated red tape.