Nor have you provided any evidence that it has negatively affected society, your argument is weak. As a matter of fact, NASA has made hundreds of contributions to society, particularly in material sciences. Here is a list I found on a pop-culture site after a few seconds of googling (I am sure there are more detailed lists elsewhere): http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/50-years-50-giant-...

I believe it is quite common for knowledge to permeate across domains (e.g. math->computer science->internet or astrobiology->biology->medicine). You adopt a naive view where you make the assumption that the works of these scientists are trivial because YOU don't see the benefit to our society. With that sort of reasoning we should never embark on any endeavor where we are unsure the outcome would benefit us.