This is a remarkably silly comparison, because part of the business of NFL players is to be well known, to sell jerseys, to sell tickets. Part of the business of CEOs is to be the face of their company. Scientists? They have no reason to be known outside their peers, unless they decide to sell books or become a public personality (for instance by becoming a CEO or, more rarely, a NFL player).
The anti-science conspiracy by the elite to keep people dumb is also pretty stupid. The problem is that, during the cold war, setting an extravagant and mostly useless goal to make a symbolic and nationalistic point was something politician could agree on. Today, setting an extravagant and mostly useless goal for the inspiration of the youth and the off-chance of having to find creative solutions for side problems that might have applications outside the field of space conquest... not so hot. The asteroid mining thing is an attempt to set a goal that, while extravagant, has at least a tangible reward (a reward that can probably be obtained more easily by looking down instead of up, but that's another debate).
Also, not all knowledge are created equal. Learning things about objects unfathomably distant and processes spanning billions of years is not exactly high priority. At this point, I should recycle my story about one of the most brilliant mind I know. The guy wanted from a young age to be an astrophysicist, was very studious, got showered in prices and awards at the end of high school, went to college and... a couple years later branched to biology. Why? Because he realized that the awe inspiring field he dreamed about during his youth was the land of bullshit artists who can make wild theories without them having any impact on any sort of reality, so he moved to a field that is more in scale with our existence.
That was the anti-NASA post of the day! (I am pro fundamental physics!)
