Nah that's just interesting because it's a 1000x expenditure with yet uncertain returns
Otoh, I've seen NASA ROI calculated anywhere from 5$ to 20$ per dollar spent. Hubbard places it at 8$. This article gives a good entry point to the topic http://www.21stcentech.com/money-spent-nasa-waste/
Oh I'm a big fan of NASA and think we ought to spend a lot on space since it's the future, but that doesn't change the fact that the Shuttle and the ISS were terrible investments. For one thing, the shuttle could lift only a fraction of what the Saturn V (used for Apollo and Skylab) lifted. In fact, Skylab actually had more space than even the largest module on the ISS (almost 2x) and was launched all in one go with a Saturn V.
Think about that: Skylab was bigger and was launched in a single day by a Saturn V. It also only cost $2.2 billion vs $150 billion for the ISS. If we had stuck with Saturn V's and the Skylab solution, we could have around 50 space stations right now--as opposed to just one. Or better yet, we could have colonies on Mars, and deep space manned missions (remember...the ship in 2001 A Space Odyssey wasn't supposed to be science fiction), and many more super-sized space telescopes, and who knows what else.
Anyway, I look at what we've done with NASA for the past 40 years compared to what we could have done and I can't help but feel like we squandered an incredible opportunity.
Otoh, I've seen NASA ROI calculated anywhere from 5$ to 20$ per dollar spent. Hubbard places it at 8$. This article gives a good entry point to the topic http://www.21stcentech.com/money-spent-nasa-waste/