Outer Wilds is a weird one for sure. It *has* goals, you just have to work out what they are. I’d say the key to it is to pick one of the unanswered questions on your log and see if you can progress it. Like the other games that use this core mechanic, the trick is to realise that you won’t make massive progress on each run, but each run should point you towards a thing to try in your next.
It’s entirely possible to ‘beat’ the game on the very first run, nothing is actually ‘locked off’ mechanically from you, you just won’t know what you can and can’t actually do until you discover it by messing around and by finding things out there in the wilds.
If the core mystery doesn’t grab you, it may well never get its hooks in though. It’s not a game that everyone who plays it enjoys.