Potatoes, tomatoes, and corn are new world foods. They pretty much revolutionized the diet of the world. No one knew that they existed before some Spaniards stumbled on them in central and south america.
Not to mention my favorites: chocolate and vanilla.
The point is you don't know what you are going to find over the horizon. But even the act of applying engineering to new and different challenges yields massive, life-changing returns.
And it costs nothing next to the gargantuan sums wasted on great society programs.
“No one knew that they existed before some Spaniards stumbled on them in central and south america. “
LOL. Millions of Indians knew about them.