It’s not any more different than any new mechanical design. Every new car line or rocket design I worked on was an “experiment” just like every new software product. You seem to confuse engineering with mass production. They are two different things.

If you think you’ll get to do research without estimating cost and schedule, you won’t be a researcher for very long. Pretending you know something you don’t is bad project management. But what I’m advocating is estimating with transparency regarding uncertainty. Uncertainty can be quantified. Pretending software is some precious unicorn project that doesn’t have to follow any process is just rationalizing bad process management.