To be fair, it’s not as if those things are mutually-exclusive. For example, you know how the Hubble Space Telescope is this extremely unique and nigh-irreplaceable scientific instrument that cost a pretty big fraction of NASA’s entire budget?
Well, it turns out we actually have dozens of the damn things; it’s just that we couldn’t be bothered to actually point more than one of them away from Earth instead of towards it.
Hell, a decade ago the National Reconnaissance Office https://www.space.com/16000-spy-satellites-space-telescopes-nasa.html 'cause they just had 'em lying around, but (as far as I know) NASA hasn’t managed to scrounge up enough money from the couch cushions to spruce 'em up and launch 'em yet.