Well, you have to quantify "waste" to make that claim.
There are many arguments that the space shuttle program's side effects helped win the cold war, foster modern communications, inspire generations to study science, ...
Those are good things, without stating its known direct accomplishments.
People debate whether the Human Brain Project was a failure, despite the fact that it generated a lot of new research.
In 2025 dollars, the cost for the Human Brain Project is just under $2 billion. In 2025 dollars, the Space Shuttle total cost is $311 billion. NASA spends about $3 billion every year on the ISS - more than the entire Human Brain Project.
The problem is that people are able to look at the Human Brain Project, and say that despite important research coming out of it, it might not have been a good idea (again, this gets debated). But people act as if some research coming out of NASA's endeavors entirely justifies them. When people refuse to look at things critically, resources almost invariably end up misallocated.
I am not saying that because good things happened that there was no waste. However, to say that nothing good came from (or can come from) something and it was a waste is stating something else entirely.
Not sure whats your problem, why can't we have both?
Those are definitely not money wasted - for waste look at things in ballpark of trillions like meaningless wars for made up reasons that destabilized whole parts of world and killed millions of civilians, look at various ways ultra rich and their companies avoid paying even bare minimum taxes and contributing back to societies form which they siphoned those vast amounts of cash.
These are peanuts which keep giving back to whole mankind and our future, instead of destroying it.
> Not sure whats your problem, why can't we have both?
Because resources are limited? Any money going to, say, SLS is money that can't go to another project. This would be true even if NASA's budget were 10x bigger.
I'm not sure what it is about NASA that leads people to pretending that we have infinite budgets. In just about any other area, we can have a discussion about whether or not this is a good allocation of resources (for instance, the Human Brain Project I mentioned before). But when NASA comes up, this goes out the window and we're supposed to believe projects like the SLS are tantamount to being free, and that they aren't diverting resources from other potential NASA projects.
There are many arguments that the space shuttle program's side effects helped win the cold war, foster modern communications, inspire generations to study science, ...
Those are good things, without stating its known direct accomplishments.