Instead of the rocket launching and space science being received as a result, the rocket could act as a container, similar to trains.
It travels between your base, and somewhere else, such as the moon, or a space station, or something. Effectively it travels to a new map, with different terrain/landscape.
You can board the rocket and travel to this new place, and then you need to setup an outpost, same concept as you would with a train.
Once at the destination, you setup mining fields etc, maybe mining lunar dust or space dust or something, and using factories and other resources, you "construct" space science packs, and load them back on to the rocket.
Then the above can all be automated, along with circuit signals, and similar controls to the train stop, you can tell the rocket to only launch after its full, or after a certain amount of time, etc...
I think it makes more sense rather than the rocket launching, and space science just appearing. Plus it would be quite a nice "change" from the main game, with the different terrain and resources.
Anyway, just an idea I thought I'd shae... Dont flame me too much
