You can make a good case for the Shuttle being a technology in search of a mission (that's a story in itself), but certainly many things learned from its construction and operation will be very useful in a lot of other space projects, and even some non-space applications.

A lot of crap is heard about Teflon and Velcro as the big space spin-offs, but the story goes a bit further than that.

I'm enthusiastic about the current private space projects, and they may end up doing a more effective job for less money, but everybody in the business realizes how much of the technological base they're building on comes from things developed over the years in NASA programs.