And this is how astronomers have managed to shepherd individual curiosity through its industrial age, preserving the individual ability to make discoveries but putting into place mega machinery to truly advance the frontier.
Thinking of time as a resource to be maximised means you approach it instrumentally, judging any given moment as well spent only in so far as it advances progress toward some goal.
However, that's about to change. Advances in computers and biophysics have started a micro miniature revolution that allows scientists to envision ---and in some cases actually build---microscopic machines.