When you invest large sums into a new long term project it gets in as capex in your quarterly results, significantly altering your balance sheets and missing analyst expectations. There are tons of ambitious projects companies can invest in including medical research (ex. cancer medicines), communication networks (ex. ubiquitous wifi), transportation networks (ex. flying cars, underground tunnels), space (ex. astroid mining, zero-g manufacturing), robotics etc. Most of them will need a tremendous amount of capital and very long term vision. Typically stock market would support projects with low to medium capex and high payouts in near to medium term. Everything else would tank your stock. There is no dearth of interesting challenges and ambitious ideas but the way we have setup public companies, quarterly results and analyst expectations of continous growth simply doesn't allow big capital expenditures.