I agree that from purely economical standpoint NASA research has paid for itself.

But I must note how none of the benefits came from any of the lofty predictions coming true: colonizing other worlds, etc.

If anything we found out that we cannot colonize anything, NASA research gave us cheap flying, globalization of commerce that we now use to negatively impact the Earth ... in the end, instead of giving us a new world, it is making us lose the one we have.