I don’t think this is a realistic model of how basic research works. Possibly this is a crux between our models?
I’m responding to this statement directly in this post. No, this isn’t how basic research works. But just because centuries of inertia cause basic research to be structured a certain way doesn’t mean it has to be that way, or that my original statement is wrong.
You could quick and dirty assemble a model using curve fitting that would approximately tell you the relationship between the position of the Moon in the sky and a rocket’s thrust vector. It wouldn’t need to be a complete theory of gravitation, that theory that was developed over centuries. And it would work : approximate models are very often good enough.
I’m responding to this statement directly in this post. No, this isn’t how basic research works. But just because centuries of inertia cause basic research to be structured a certain way doesn’t mean it has to be that way, or that my original statement is wrong.
You could quick and dirty assemble a model using curve fitting that would approximately tell you the relationship between the position of the Moon in the sky and a rocket’s thrust vector. It wouldn’t need to be a complete theory of gravitation, that theory that was developed over centuries. And it would work : approximate models are very often good enough.