100 times this. Providing "stupid money" but no vision and no accountability leads to the "but 4 billion of the budget needs to be spent in MY state - but then we'll have to transport the boosters by train - but then we'll have to cut them apart - but then we have to use complex o-ring seals instead of simply welding them together -> Challenger blows up" bikeshedding of the shuttle era.

I wonder if you think the vision needed to advance science is stronger among NASA scientists or US politicians.

Yeah, Bell Labs never did anything really important.

Actually it's scientifically been shown that you can just throw money at people. However, that study was not conducted on scientists, whom I am certain will squander it as they do now.