[TangoTrotFox]

You definitely make some good points. I think my issue here is not so much just the goal orientation, but rather goals that will directly advance other interests simultaneously. Again getting back to the point that funding since funding is limited, it seems like it would make the most sense to think of the big picture with that funding rather than thinking in the short term of what would be neat to do with their current funding?

So to make this more clear, one reason I think what SpaceX has already achieved and especially what they plan to achieve is so revolutionary is because of how it would impact other programs. Like you mention one of NASA's big goals is a sample return mission. And this is going to be highly complex and highly expensive. The OSIRIS-REx mission mission is a billion dollar, 7 year mission to get 0.1-2kg of debris from an asteroid that comes within 0.0002AU of Earth with a 6 year period. That's really not reasonable. These missions would be trivialized with technologies such as the BFR. Such technology would also enable vastly greater scope and scale of these sort of missions. A Uranus orbiter will provide some science that might have some value, but it's not really advancing anything. The chance of revolutionary discovery is practically 0, and it will be unlikely to have a meaningful effect on future missions or projects.

Basically it feels quite odd that we're using technology that is comparable in both price and capability to what we were using the 70s. It's quite peculiar, and I think this has been the major hold up in us achieving much more in space. Imagine for a minute that it's 1969. We've just seen live footage of men walking and driving rovers on the moon. And I tell you that in 50 years NASA's vision for a flagship mission will be sending a probe to Uranus. And no man would ever leave low earth orbit again after 1972. Wouldn't you say something has gone very wrong? And this wrongness continues to persist, and I think it is because of this 'Well I have $x. What should I spend it all on?' as opposed to aiming for directed evolution and progress.