If someone wants to make predications, it would be more helpful if someone went to the effort to predict where to best put our resources now so that it will have the most impact in 50 years.

For example, consider that the CERN Supercollider could have been built 20 years ago but the US canceled the project because it only wanted to fund one big science project and the Hubble won.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider

Of course, maybe it's better to put more time and money into all research. Picking winners isn't always a good idea either.