Riffing off of your comment: Neal Stephenson has a pretty good article about path dependence in space exploration: https://slate.com/technology/2011/02/space-s

Riffing off of your comment: Neal Stephenson has a pretty good article about path dependence in space exploration: https://slate.com/technology/2011/02/space-stasis-what-the-strange-persistence-of-rockets-can-teach-us-about-innovation.html https://slate.com/technology/2011/02/space-stasis-what-the-s...