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Dead end, I don't think so, but certainly it's playing on hard mode. I don't know what went wrong on the latest Starship launch, so I won't comment on that. W
by throwawayffffas 1y ago
Dead end, I don't think so, but certainly it's playing on hard mode.
I don't know what went wrong on the latest Starship launch, so I won't comment on that.
What I am going to say is that if each rocket engine has 0.001 chance of blowing up, putting 33 engines on your rocket means you have a 3.2% chance your rocket will blow up. If you add another 9 on your second stage you have a 4.1% chance of "rapidly disassembling".
We have seen this play before, the soviets were blowing up rocket after rocket on launchpads while NASA went to the moon and back.
- modeless 1y agoIt seems like SpaceX is betting that they can build a rocket that can survive an engine or two blowing up.
- throwawayffffas 1y agoSure, plus it looks to me they think that they can balance the reliability and cost equation. i.e. Make a lot of very reliable small engines a lot cheaper than a few big less reliable engines.
- Zigurd 1y agoAmong the internal inconsistencies of Starship is that they have many small engines, but they're pushing them all to the limits to get enough thrust out of them. They could be outside the margins and just not be able to make them reliable for one flight, never mind rapid reuse on multiple flights.