Reminds me of a great conversation in The West Wing (one of the best written shows ever made, in my opinion).

A senator (ENLOW) has put an anonymous hold on building a supercollider, the white house deputy communications director (SAM) wants to help his old professor (MILLGATE) get the budget approved for it, and this is near the end of the episode:

  ENLOW
  I'm a Democrat, Sam. How's a 20 billion dollar astronomy lecture gonna help
  the President get elected?
  
  SAM
  It won't. "We've discovered a seamless, intellectual framework for the
  universe" isn't a good 30-second spot.
  
  ENLOW
  If only we could only say what benefit this thing has, but no one's been 
  able to do that.
  
  MILLGATE
  That's because great achievement has no road map. The X-ray's pretty good. 
  So is penicillin. Neither were discovered with a practical objective in 
  mind. I mean, when the electron was discovered in 1897, it was useless. And 
  now, we have an entire world run by electronics. Haydn and Mozart never 
  studied the classics. They couldn't. They invented them.
  
  SAM
  Discovery.

  MILLGATE
  What?

  SAM
  That's the thing that you were... Discovery is what. That's what this is used 
  for. 
  It's for discovery.

(I tried to find a clip, because Sorkin's writing is even more beautiful when acted by Rob Lowe.. but can't on YouTube.)