Well the space travel of the 1960s gave us the personal computer. The space travel of the 21st century will give us personal robots. How would you like a robotic butler, gardener, cook, cleaner and tutor. I certainly would!
Agreeing with the other answers. Most of today's technology came from government programs such as NASA and the military. The internet was from the military before it was introduced for private communication. Space travel is something that is in my opinion very important. Im going to try and explain my reasoning with a story. So a bunch of cavemen have lived deep inside this cave for many generations without ever seeing the surface.Too them the surface is something of fairy tale and efforts should not be made to journey to the surface when there are problems in the cave. People need water, threes no food, and people need help. The dreamers are just wasting their time. They should stop focusing on the idea of the surface and help the community find ways to help everyone else.
I hope you can see the irony and almost frustration in the story.