I like your idea, and agree with the guy down on the post.
I believe the game actually need to be harder, until the devs can actually make earth factions a real threat, the MC cost should not be generous, a 5 to level 1, 4 to level 2, 3 to level 3 and 2 to Automated would be interesting, because we don t really have a reason to use them otherwise.

The other changes actually help.

I had ideas for some space based boost, but you're correct. We need space nations and an easier hook into using population on a planet to handle boost costs. Unfortunately, that's a lot harder to modify right now.

The idea is good but this sort of mod won't fix the issue.
With this mod Mercury rush becomes 1000x more powerful. You can easily get >50k science from Mercury without getting near MC cap even on brutal.
Simultaneously, all this does is switch the later game bottleneck from MC to boost as you need 8 spaceworks just to break even, making space-based boost non-viable. And since you need much less MC you'll just direct all of those IP into boost instead.

I think this problem can only be fixed by the addition of a system to make nations in space like what the devs said will eventually be added.