The lift mechanism was still vertically stacked chemical rockets of the sort that had already flown for decades.
The Columbia shuttle crew would still be with us if this were correct.
True, the space shuttle was not completely contained on its vertical axis, but I was talking about the boosters themselves. I said the lift mechanism was a vertically stacked chemical rocket, not that the entire shuttle was a uniform tower, as it obviously wasn't.
The boosters are components of the space shuttle, which is what we were talking about: simpler working components evolving into complex systems.
Simple working component: Rocket booster
Complex system: Shuttle with a crew module, fuel tanks, and multiple boosters
This is our monthly thread for collecting these little gems and pearls of wisdom, rationality-related quotes you've seen recently, or had stored in your quotesfile for ages, and which might be handy to link to in one of our discussions.