I'm kind of fascinated -- and not necessarily in a good sense -- with how unbelievably conservative the aerospace industry became right after its greatest moment of glory. That would have been Apollo in 1969. Seems like after the Moon landings everyone just said "welp, that's it, nothing else will ever be done."
I agree, I can imagine NASA became complacent, stopped embracing risk, prioritised perfection over practicability and became similar to many public sector departments.
