You asked me once about a real 3-D map of space. Well, this is it.

Incidentally, relevant to other recent discussions...

This is a European Space Agency spacecraft launched by the French on a Russian rocket. NASA is nowhere to be seen.

It is no criticism of the private space industry that this is strictly a government project. Only governments can afford missions like this, that regardless of their potential future value, they would be impossible to sell to private investment, or within the reach of even the most philanthropic entrepreneur. There is simply no forseeable return on investment on this mission within our lifetime, and the scientific community eager to see this data could not come up with the subscription fees to pay for the product.

It is the tax dollars of millions of people who haven't the slightest interest in this mission, the tiniest desire to pay for it, or any hope of benefitting from it, that have made it possible.

OTOH, there is always a chance this "basic research" mission, or others similar to it, may stumble onto something so profound and unexpected that it could turn into a real game changer for the private space industry. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Basic research in astrometry has already led to two fundamental scientific revolutions with incalculable "practical benefits". Tycho Brahe's high-precision star catalogues led directly to Kepler's confirmation of the Copernican cosmology, and then by extension, to Newton's Laws of Motion.

And precise measurements of anomalies in Mercury's orbit suggested General Relativity to Dr Einstein. You never know what will come from astronomical navel-gazing.