>>“The result was what we’ve been flying for 30 years.”

>== if there is any truth in that- it would explain a great
> many things. I consider it plausible because of experiences I have had.==

Yeah at the time I aws shocked, 25ish years later having bounced though many other programs — I’ve seen worse.

Still hurts to think what might have been if they had a couple weeks to thnik through it.

I usually skip over your posts but if there is any truth in that- it would explain a great many things. I consider it plausible because of experiences I have had.
I was present many years ago when the coast guard made a brave attempt to get input on a new medium range helicopter they were acquiring. For some reason I am hearing warning bells going off talking about this so I will have to be vague but it goes like this;
We knew what type but not the specifics of the model. We actually had flight mechanics and pilots from other services who had worked on many of the different models. They put us all in one room and began to present the features they were looking at and took any comments from our group of about 60. It went well I thought. One of the big issues that came up that everyone breathed a sigh of relief over was blade fold. The ex-navy mechs all agreed that the auto blade fold system was a can of worms. The pilots commented that our cutters were really too small to operate this large of a helicopter so it was not really needed.

Unfortunately a couple months later I had a conversation with an officer in the program from HQ- who had not been at this meeting- who told me that a few weeks previously a “working group” at HQ had decided to go with the blade fold. I was kind of upset about this and asked him why and he said, Well, it’s nice to have, and it would be more expensive to take it off the navy model we are buying than to leave it on.

I worked on that blade fold system for years afterward and sweated blood troubleshooting and fixing it a hundred times. The huge number of hours spent testing and inspecting and the down time and parts cost uncounted millions over those years- and may have contributed in several cases to people dying at sea because a helicopter was not available (but that is hard to prove of course). They tried landing the helicopter on cutters a couple times and sure enough it was too big. Even if we had bigger boats the blade fold was really so the aircraft could get below deck on an aircraft carrier in a hurry. Traditional blade folding with a team using crutches and a guy on the head with a rubber hammer was sufficient on single aircraft vessels. They system was never to be used operationally but a couple guys in a meeting looking for points with their boss pushed it and the world was stuck with it.
Not nice to have.
Not too expensive to take off.
After a decade of struggling with this Albatross it was finally removed from the helicopter at much greater expense than doing it initially.

This is how screwed up machines like the space shuttle come into existence. A vehicle far hotter and more dangerous than any fighter plane but without a single escape system. Underfunded and pushed by a clique to meet their own agenda. An agenda divorced from the purpose of the machine.

This is how the profit motive also works. If you are trying to make money with something- it is just a different clique and agenda.
The profit motive is toxic to space exploration. There is no cheap.
FWIW

> What is it about solids that made NASA think they were cheap?==

Cheaper to design.

Talked to one guy who was no the team at JSC and he said they came in on a Thursday afternoon and told them Monday morning Nixon needs to have on his desk a redesigned shutle that retains the lift and on orbit abilities – but costs half as much to develop as the then current 2 stage fully reusable flyback design. The result was what we’ve been flying for 30 years.

>== My own view is that NASA provided a greater financial return
> during its first 45 years, from 1915 until 1960, when it was a
> supporting partner for the aviation industry and an instrument of
> US industrial policy, then during the last 50 years when it was
> primarily flying missions with no commercial impact.==

NASA didn’t exist before 1958, NACA existed then — and probably was more productive then NASA.

Go ahead and compare it. 6 million pounds of thrust vs. Inferior Lift Vehicles that will cripple human space flight. No comparison. You have to pay to play.