All attempts to discover how the universe works benefits us. Even a lot of really esoteric stuff has proven useful in fields like medicine and civil engineering.
Honestly if we can pivot our high tech innovation efforts from being mainly driven by military needs to being driven by basic research (basic in this case meaning researching the natural world directly without any particular goal other than learning), we'd be a lot better off.
Stop making ridiculous comparisons. Dogs are cute when they beg.