One person that disagrees with something (for whatever reason) probably won't be enough to abandon research on it. I'm cool with taking a look at what is there.
The whole situation is really upsetting. The public has no idea how research in "pointless" X, "grant-begging" Y and "wasteful" Z could, through their combined research and perhaps a couple surprises along the way, yield W, something new and outstandingly useful.
For an example of this, look at the Four Coloring Problem. Microsoft permitted one of their employees to work on that and, through the research required found a way to make their systems crash less often. Yes, Microsoft themselves funded the research, but did you or I see "more stable OS" from "Graph Coloring"? I know I didn't.
Also, when you think of research to explore space, do you think of: high efficiency foam insulation, "Portable X-ray machines, programmable pacemakers", "concentrated baby foods", "freeze-dried instant mixes" and "surgical tools"[2]? I don't. If you have, you have vastly more foresight than me, and I'm sure I'm not alone in my narrow-mindedness when it comes to the usefulness of some science projects.
In all, I believe the normal citizen has no idea what's useful in regard to research and what's not.* Is there even such a thing as useless research?
[1] I'm having a bit of trouble locating the citation for this one. Unfortunately, it is still one of my favorite, obscure discoveries. If anyone can remember more of the Hacker News post that made reference to it and could help me find it, I'd be most grateful and change my post right away.
[2] http://space.balettie.com/Lovell.html
* I do admit that there is an opportunity for scientists to begin to do unethical things and this should be controlled, (perhaps not by the people, perhaps so), but this is not decided what to research so much as what/how not to research.