It's interesting that this point should come up, because it's one of the primary criticisms I have regarding scientific work today.  There's an expectation that science is no longer about gathering information or acquiring knowledge, but rather about finding specific applications that can be readily converted into benefits or industries.

It should be abundantly clear that there is no such thing as "wasted knowledge" since everything we learn (including when we are wrong) helps us move forward to promote a better understanding of how the world works. 

There's no question that some of the problem is that hype gets introduced because funding is necessary, so science becomes as involved in marketing and sales as any other group that needs money.  However, if this problem isn't addressed, then it won't be long before scientific research will be conducted on the results it produces quarter to quarter, just as our insane stock market determines what constitutes good business behavior.  There simply becomes no room for the "long-term" objectives of anything.

In fairness, just this once, to the media, the public and policy makers, when these projects under criticism were originally being funded, biologists had no problem at all with hype about cures for cancer, etc. that would result if they could just get money.   It's only in the last year when people started matching expenditures to results that some calls for lower expectations were made.

In fairness to biologists, though, no one hypes like astronomy - virtually every multi-billion project is going to be late and 3X over budget but the claims about what it will do are literally out of this world.