Avoid Technology For Technology's Sake
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If a complex task has not been performed, then the technology to perform that task does not yet exist.
Emmanuel Mesthene wrote that technology is "the organization of knowledge for the achievement of practical purposes." ESA (European Space Agency) says that "technology is the practical application of knowledge so that something entirely new can be done, or so that something can be done in a completely new way."
NASA uses a nine-level scale of technology readiness that indicates where technology exists on a spectrum from conjecture to application.
There are thousands of technology challenges that have to be met to complete a new space mission, even one that is only incrementally more complex than a mission that has already been completed.
Not moving incrementally would mean increasing the number of technology challenges exponentially.
The task becomes too complex and things get missed.