alt Hacker NewsThey learned a lot, and pushed their tools further, in ways that left them with new insights and possible engineering paths for more practical work.
“Play” “fun”, curiosity” and “challenge for challenges sake” are adaptive strategies for learning unexpectedly useful things.
Imagine how boring the world would be if we refused every idea that didn't have an immediately practical purpose. Rocketry was probably overkill here but it did achieve at least one thing for the Tesla and SpaceX engineers: you can do things you did not believe were possible.