On: “News is what somebody does not want you to print ...

[pfdietz]

And it was known as early as the 1960s that expendable launch vehicles could be reduced in cost by as much as a factor of 10 by adopting a minimum cost rather than maximum performance design methodology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_dumb_booster

http://www.quarkweb.com/foyle/MinimumCostDesign.pdf

Easterbrook again was pointing this out, in the August 17, 1987 Newsweek.