@DK_Dharmaraj I don't mean to be a dick. The blood and sweat of intellectuals is for the most part safely contained within their bodies and they prefer it that way. They do not toil, they are not the backbone of industry and agriculture. Neither do they lead great armies of lab interns in bloody battles over equations and theory. Intellectual pursuits are not society-forming. They are an optional luxury funded by, and to a large degree historically made up of, idle noblemen.
It's very cool
I am myself a fan of science
Architecture and anatomy are sciences and I much like the cathedrals and marble statues trads post, and I'm sad that we aren't making more of those or of space rockets.

But I'm just a fan. A true intellectual who loves the rocket surgery for its own sake -- is both that rare genius that really advances his field, and in real life tends to be a person a little apart from his society. Awkwardly disinterested in what the common man will kill and die for.
And that's to my think of high and low castes. The shape rotator is concerned about the shape. The starving peasant will kill and die to have bread, the militant will kill and die to put his own in power, the zealot will kill and die for the glory of his god who calls down rain and created the earth young. And the scientist will acquiesce.
Von Braun and the rest of Operation paperclip and Soviet equivalents did not put up some sort of desperate last stand or engage in sabotage in their commitment to the cause. They wanted to see the shapes rotate in real life.

No the science isn't a make or break issue.