Quite so. Blue sky research has a much longer payback cycle (and sometimes doesn't pay back at all), but often has an astronomically high rate of return.
For many years the laser was considered to be a "solution looking for a problem", yet today they are absolutely ubiquitous in numerous applications and have contributed to the well-being of human-kind in innumerable ways (surgery, communication, safety, etc.)
When Maxwell studied the theory of electromagnetism it was absolutely blue sky research with questionable practicality. Yet the fruit of that research served as the foundation of innumerable inventions in the 19th and 20th centuries, easily responsible for hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of goods and services to be produced and delivered to people.
For many years the laser was considered to be a "solution looking for a problem", yet today they are absolutely ubiquitous in numerous applications and have contributed to the well-being of human-kind in innumerable ways (surgery, communication, safety, etc.)
When Maxwell studied the theory of electromagnetism it was absolutely blue sky research with questionable practicality. Yet the fruit of that research served as the foundation of innumerable inventions in the 19th and 20th centuries, easily responsible for hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of goods and services to be produced and delivered to people.