Maybe NASA felt that half of a fully reusable Shuttle (and a bigger payload, greater cross range version, per GIThruster) was better than
no Shuttle.
Bad decision, as it turned out, although what it did accomplish in a pared-back form is still remarkable.
The fully reusable (and more robust) version, had it been developed, might still be flying for another ten or twenty years.
At least the space entrepreneurs now have a really serious gap to fill. Best wishes to them.
The old guard (LockMart, Boeing, NorGrum, etc.) had their chance, and blew it by becoming too big and bloated to take on new risks without a Federal nipple being involved, i.e., an aversion to
seriously funding Internal Research and Development and maintaining such funding in the face of inevitable setbacks and shareholder gripes. Next quarter's profit, that's all that matters.
This relates to the Harvard Business School, McNamara-style MBA takeover discussed in the General forum:
viewtopic.php?t=3186
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 30,00.html
The auto industry is actually a terrific proxy for a trend toward short-term, myopically balance-sheet-driven management that has infected American business. In the first half of the 20th century, industrial giants like Ford, General Electric, AT&T and many others were extremely consumer-focused. They spent most of their time and money using new technologies to create the best possible products and services, regardless of development cost. The idea was, if you build it better, the customers will come. And they did.
The pendulum began to swing in the postwar era, when Harvard Business School grad Robert McNamara and his "whiz kids" became famous for using mathematical modeling, game theory and complex statistical analysis for the Army Air Corps, doing things like improving fuel-transport times and scheduling more-efficient bombing raids. McNamara, who later became president of Ford, brought extreme number crunching to the business world, and soon the idea that "if you can measure it, you can manage it" took hold — and no wonder. By the late 1970s, M.B.A.s were flourishing, and engineers were relegated to the geek back rooms.