Case in point... Ringworld (along with Pournelle - who is also a conservative more or less)
No "more or less" about it. Pournelle IS a conservative, even if he (and Niven) live in California.
He was also a problem solver. The engineering students who chanted at a science fiction convention “Ringworld is unstable” found it the plot of a second book about the jets on the rim and hominid species that took them for space ships ... and Teela’s solution to save Ringworld with the instability and remaining jets.