The land requirement for solar should not be so casually dismissed.
To power the US energy needs, you need an area about the size of New Jersey. Also roughly equivalent to the area taken up by roads. The interstate highway system alone has been cited as the largest public works project in history, and that's "just" asphalt.
The government has been in the business of basic research since science was a thing. Funding from taxes is a more fundamental component of the scientific process than peer review (a more recent development).
I've always had an odd pleasure at standing at the edge of cliffs. Something meditative about trying to overcome the feeling of unbalance. Think about it, you can be perfectly balanced standing on a cubic foot of rock. But if it's suspended hundreds of feet in the air, you would feel unbalanced (wind notwithstanding).
It turns out that this actually is dangerous. The feeling of imbalance is a "real" reaction your body has.
I seem to remember Sartre saying interesting things about this idea. Something about exercising your absolute freedom or something. As far as I know, it's perfectly normal.
Institutions can adapt, and I'm fairly confident they can handle this okay. I'm more worried about the damage that will be done to democracy from a political perspective and the criminal justice system. If you think large chunks of the US lack a shared epistemology now, just imagine when people have legitimate reasons to mistrust voice or video recordings.
"Travelling much slower" isn't really an option either. By the time a craft encounters Pluto, the problem is that it's going too slow. It then has to match the (higher) orbital speed, and Pluto's gravity is not helping much.
To power the US energy needs, you need an area about the size of New Jersey. Also roughly equivalent to the area taken up by roads. The interstate highway system alone has been cited as the largest public works project in history, and that's "just" asphalt.