I do want us to pour money into foundational research, but form an outsider's perspective, it does seem like a lot of it does require increasingly large capital costs with things like the LHC, and feels all so theoretical.

I think it's worth every penny, but at first glance it feels incredibly abstract and disconnected from practical application, as well as expensive. (Though, to be honest, I just looked up the LHC cost and $9Bn USD doesn't feel expensive. I was expected it to come up in the hundreds of billions.)