Re: The future here ...
"The 53 year old Saturn V didn't need a pair of fireworks strapped to the side to do the job."
Solid boosters are used all over the place and are a good method of adding thrust right off of the pad where you don't need all of the control of a liquid fueled motor. I don't know if solid rockets were mature enough during the Apollo era to be considered for use with manned spacecraft.
Solid boosters are dead simple and have great isp. The downside is they don't have an off switch and problems can be very catastrophic.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
