When I was growing up, fairly young still (13), the shuttle blew up shortly after liftoff. It set the whole program back by many years, crushing many of my dreams for rapid expansion into space (it was also fairly traumatizing to watch the repeated coverage). To be honest, except for a few great wins and unique missions, I don't think the shuttle was truly a big tech payoff.
The current generation also had CERN which gave us confirmation of Higgs and LIGO which confirmed Gravity Waves, two of the biggest discoveries of the century.
tbqh confirmations aren't exciting unless you're in that scientific field. Most people just hear 'we spent $10 billion and found that our predictions about something too small to detect any other way were correct.' Sure there are downstream benefits in everything from heavy engineering to database design, but that's too abstract for most people.
That's why people make up conspiracy theories instead about how the LHC is pulling the earth into a different timeline and changing the facts of the past. It's paranoid nonsense but it's interesting seems like the sort of exciting outcome you should get in return for $10b. I kinda think CERN should lean into it, sponsor Half Life 3 or something.
So excited to finally see some big tech payoff in my lifetime. Our parents had the shuttles, we get the telescope!