Another hard fact...
In the long run, space will be exploited only to the extent that you can make more money on it than it costs. Ideally, some day space-related companies will make enough money (maybe launching expensive payloads with cheap launchers, maybe mining asteroids, maybe who knows what) to have enough surplus wealth to fund pure research without having to tap the government.
I remember the days when telescopes and such were built by science-minded patrons, or the way that SETI was rescued by private funding, and I think that someday most science could be done this way.