Why not just use expendable sounding rockets for science applications? How is a pilot useful?
Reusable vehicles that fly frequently will greatly reduce costs compared to expendable sounding rockets. Fast turnaround will greatly expand the type of science applications. A pilot or a passenger in charge of an experiment can monitor the instruments and possibly fix simple problems that would otherwise cause the experiment to fail if they occurred in an unmanned vehicle. Furthermore, the fact that someone will be there means that the testing, redundancies, and backups can be decreased and thus lower the costs of the system.
