That works, this eve accent craft uses it to keep balanced.
Note that its two layers for double drag, the rear tank is almost empty.
Now this is exploiting KSP drag model, biplanes works because of two wings, layered parachutes does not double drag.
You could also add airbrakes on the tank to adjust drag.
Here its seen with an Eve orbital tug and its rover still connected. I dropped rover first it did science and then the return rocket to get kerbal out.
Had to do lots of passes to get into an reasonable circular low Eve orbit as the orbital velocity is high.
Use drag plates a lot on ships going between Minus and LKO.
Another way is rear heat shields to generate stability and drag.
Here I launched the two extra heat shields separately and docked them to the tug at the rear. I reused the RCS thrusters on the tug as I forgotten to add them
An kerbal on eva can pick up science data from a pod and store at another pod, or simply enter the compartment.
Note that you can only store one copy of an experiment like an surface sample from biome. An kerbal in an rover seat and science labs can store unlimited
magnemoe's post in Stabilization of Interplanetary Motherships during Aerocapture was marked as the answer