SBIR Grants are supposed to finance "moon shot" projects. Unfortunately the way they are granted is very "opaque" to put it mildly and without going into more detail.
"And individual federal agencies that participate in the program can decide what they are interested in researching."
This is true, I never said something different. I just know from people two who got SBIR I and II who discouraged me to apply since they know how the selections process works.
Matthew Weinberg, former Special Advisor to the SBA's Office of Investment and Innovation, disagrees with you. With respect to the SBIR program, he said:
"It’s fundamentally astounding that the federal government—not private venture capital firms or banks—is the entity backing these moonshot investments that end up changing the world[1]."
He also wrote an article about the SBIC and SBIR programs entitled, "Your federal government drives innovation by investing in moonshots[2]".
(My italics)
1. https://www.fundera.com/blog/sbir-program
2. https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/03/your-federal-government-dr...
The are more fundamental gov't programs for "moon shots" within NASA and DARPA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Institute_for_Advanced_Co...
Trust me, the mathematical chance of approximately 10% has nothing to do with your real chances which could be much lower, or much higher.