If you want to talk about spending priorities, how about the folly of the Iraq war, trident, etc. those cost huge amounts more than this mission? Not everyone has the same priorities as you.
Thank goodness at least some of our money is spent on things which might benefit humanity in the long term, like discovering how the solar system was formed or whether life was formed on earth or elsewhere.
...where did I indicate I would rather spend that money on war and weapons? My comment actually states: "Don't get me wrong I'm all for these kinds of missions".
As for your long term benefits:
Great so we find out how the solar system is formed or where life was formed - now what? Those are really cool things to know but what do we do with that information? The reason I'm curious about this is that although I want to see more of these missions and I think it would be great to have answers to those questions I find it difficult to actually justify spending that money on answering questions. There must be some tangible benefit. Other responses to my question have provided me with answers to that.
> I find it difficult to actually justify spending that money on answering questions. There must be some tangible benefit.
Maybe they haven't been discovered yet. Application can lag theory or basic experiments for a very long time. Did the car come right after the wheel? Did the iPhone come right after Ohm's Law? Maybe this will aid comet/asteroid mining missions. Or optical image processing. Or orbit optimization for long solar system traverses. I think it's very shortsighted to pursue only research that has visible short-term benefits, because you could be missing out on countless innovations that are below the horizon. We can't predict the future. But I also think application is unnecessary, and that there is inherent value in understanding our world.
In any case, while I don't know how much the average European pays for ESA in taxes, I do know the average American pays something like a few bucks to fund NASA. So you're quibbling over the use of a tiny proportion of resources to answer some big questions.
"Don't get me wrong I'm all for these kinds of missions"
Which you then contradicted by whining about not seeing the benefit of it; you're clearly not all for this mission or you wouldn't have derailed this top thread with your concern troll.
There doesn't have to be a tangible, short term benefit for these missions to be considered worthwhile by the majority of humanity, so your question is irrelevant to them. If you can't see the benefit to us of finding out when and where life was formed, I can't help you.
Thank goodness at least some of our money is spent on things which might benefit humanity in the long term, like discovering how the solar system was formed or whether life was formed on earth or elsewhere.