A few hundred grand for the very best new ideas that could do them a lot of good but that they haven't come up with themselves? Seems like a bargain, doesn't it?
Absolutely. I mean, the more innocent sci-fi writers that submit their work, the more chance those at the top have of putting together some amazing bull shit for the masses to wet themselves over.
You don't think star trek and star wars were so popular for nothing, do you?
They were popular because the fiction writers made it believable, subconsciously, even though consciously people knew it was sci-fi.
This is why they can get away with this mars rubbish and warp drive nonsense, because star trek and such like has given people a perception of, anything is possible.
Paying someone a few hundred grand for a long term money spinner of fictional clap trap is small coins in a large ocean.