Quote Originally Posted by J-H View Post
As an example, where is the most "space science" being done today? I'd argue SpaceX. They are actually performing empirical testing and improvement to discover what works and to formulate new principles for affordable spaceflight. Maybe that's more engineering than science, but science without engineering is just words. Meanwhile, NASA and Boeing are making one-use spaceships with multi-year delays where changing one flawed piece requires 13 months of disassembly (one of the "crew transport" things, don't recall because SpaceX is lapping them so much).
That's a highly specific subset of space science called aerospace engineering. There's far more to space science than just making rockets. And as for science without engineering just being words the four core sciences (math, physics, chemistry, and biology) would like a few words.