Engineers finding solutions to problems that don’t exist have been at the heart of most all of the major important advancements in history
Look at just the inventions of Tesla alone. There was no such thing as alternating current before he invented it. So none of the items that it led to were even thought of, let alone were ‘problems’ to solve.
MOST great discoveries were not the result of a search for them and a sudden shout of “Eureka! I found it” but more often began with “Hmmm...thats funny...”
OK....
Focus on deep sea rather than deep space
Make sense??
We are here and can solve our issues, running off to another world breeds inventions that MAY have application in the earthly realm, my understanding is that this “impact” is far less than it used to be so you may want to research and then let me know, I am always willing to learn