We're ragging on the institute not the personnel. It's nearly criminal to keep all that excellent ability and talent chained to a dead-end space station support mission. Exciting things could be happening if they could be let off their leash. Progress there has been; progress is unavoidable with such a level of expertise. But the progress there should have been in the past 30 years is nowhere in evidence. Where is the moon base? Where is the Mars base? Where is the interplanetary shuttle? Should have all that up and running by now.
My guess is over the last 30 years we've been distributing it in the form of:
They don't pay and only get recognized when something blows up or crashes. God Bless Them!