I find it interesting that this was considered an innovative approach considering the popular history of how the wright brothers succeeded the very same way: by

I find it interesting that this was considered an innovative approach considering the popular history of how the wright brothers succeeded the very same way: by basing their plane on a bicycle and testing rapidly. We often frame this in terms of keeping the cost of failure low...but that failure isn't really failure is it? No more than running a round of unit tests. Keep the cost of learning low.