"I figure that government grants for "science" (whatever you want to call the stuff nowadays) has choked off real science, and destroyed innovation."
You're right, science hasn't advanced at all in the past 48 years. I mean, name one thing that we have developed since then? Oh, wait.
Development is not science. The SuperConductingSuperCollider, that was science, Big Science, but Science none the less. The Space Shuttle does very little science, but some.
Canceling the monitoring of the Voyager spacecraft is just plain criminal. It's done mostly by grad students, and can't cost all that much, and the money spent to pay those students also helps create new scientists. (possibly for India and China, but that's another story) The time on the Deep Space Network probably is the most significant cost.