Long endurance flight is a purpose unto itself, alike Ingenuity copter's purpose to prove flight a feasible technology on other planets. Another commenter crack

Long endurance flight is a purpose unto itself, alike Ingenuity copter's purpose to prove flight a feasible technology on other planets. Another commenter cracked wise about this being an alternative to just storing the mini-spaceplane in a hanger. Well yes, but with less terrestrial degredagtion (atmosphere & what all), and having some creative/scientific functions (growing seeds. sidenote, i had some like 3rd generation space tomato plants my 5th grade teacher gave us all. great year!) i view this plane, in macro, somewhat like a right-sized shuttle. the shuttle was big & heavy & had vastly cumbersome resposnsibilities to shepard all in all pretty useless humans along for the ride. as a cargo delivery system it made little sense. but an orbital vessel with some orbital control, that can come down & get reused, that has great roboticized automation... it's a drone, for space. it's an automated spaceplane.