what, it should depend on private corporate funding instead? or maybe solely depend on the crumbs provided from government funding? if private citizens want to contribute money, i'm guessing most research teams starving for funding would not be opposed.
Research, especially fundamental research, should have stable multi year funding by the government. The current way, with many researchers being forced to spend more time on grant hunting than researching or teaching, and focus not dictated by scientific needs but by political aims (NASA!), and young researchers being ruthlessly exploited, is unsustainable.
Just compare the structures back when science, research and progress were taken seriously to now. It was the US government that gave humanity lasers, Internet, integrated circuits, battery tech, databases (Oracle!), satellite-based data gathering - almost all of what modern life grants us was founded back decades ago by massive government/military research programs.
Side note: this is also valid for Europe. We have all lost our collective focus to progress and advance to corporate greed and minimalist-government theories, while China has picked up the slack. The 21st century, I fear, will belong to China thanks to the collective actions of the last 30 years.
I don't think anyone receiving gov't funding would consider it stable. Every year, people have to justify their funding at the risk of having the funding removed. I have quasi-personal experience with the withdrawing of funding when Congress killed the Superconducting Super Collider. They killed it the same year that I was in high school and was going to spend time as an intern as several of my older classmates had done.
I know we're speaking the same base. Science funding is woefully short for pure scientific research endeavors. The US gave up on the race for discovery a long long time ago before I was born. The "why?" must always be backed up with a solid money making something. "Why?" can no longer be "because we don't know what we might find out" for a response that will get funded.
