You don't have to look far to see critics of the Shuttle and ISS say things like "we've been going no where" or "we've spend 25+ years going around in circles." Statements like these seem to indicate that spacecraft are not useful unless they get out of the Earth's gravity well. I couldn't disagree more.
Weather satellites are an obvious example. Also, researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) have made tremendous discoveries. The fact that HST is in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) allows the spacecraft to be repaired and upgraded. The next and last servicing mission is schedule for October.
Thinking that the ISS needs to go beyond LEO to be useful is like thinking that the 9.2 meter telescope at McDonald Observatory is of no value unless it is orbiting the moon. Each is a tool designed for a specific purpose.
The ISS was not designed to go to a destination. The ISS is the destination for a class of researchers. Certainly the process of building and operating it is an interesting experiment, but it is also a facility designed to be utilized by researchers to conduct experiments. If you don't like the science that is currently being done, get funding for science that takes advantage of it's unique capabilities - hard vacuum, micro-gravity environment, observation platform (up to the sky or down to the Earth), long duration, human tended. The human tended part is interesting in that the humans can be subjects of experiments, or they can be part of the research team.
Debates of "should we have built ISS" are not useful at this point. The decision to build ISS was made long ago, and now the facility is here. My point is that discussions about how to use the ISS in the way it was designed are more productive than proposing far fetched ideas.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
