Very useful background for hard science fiction, which is (pun intended) hard to done correctly without serious (self-)education in STEM... Isaac Asimov, too, had thought for some time that his vocation lies in academic research concerning biology and chemistry. Life proved him wrong already in mid-1950s, but it’s not much a bad thing, I think.

Have you ever read hard SF/new space opera books of Greg Egan, Charles Sheffield, Michael Flynn, Hannu Rajaniemi, or Stephen Baxter? If not, sample them.