I know its literally rocket science and a lot of very complex systems need to work together, but shouldnt we be able to iterate on a working formular?
In: Engineering
There are some working formula, like the Soyuz, Ariane V/VI and Delta IV, they are incredibly reliable and relatively expensive.
Rockets have very low production numbers, by just iterating carefully, not much progress will be made. For developing a new rocket there are basically two different design paths that can be taken.
The NASA/ESA approach acknowledges that rockets are expensive and failure is not an option. There is a lot of testing, research and quality checks that go into every single part, making sure that the probability of success is as close to 100% as possible. This makes an already costly rocket even more expensive and in the worst case, too expensive ti built the planned number of rockets per year. In that case all the development and running costs of the facility have to be shared over a smaller number of launches, making them hideously expensive, like SLS.
The other way is SpaceX/Soyuz admitting that failure is possible and making every failure as cheap and informative as possible. The goal is to try out a lot of different stuff for as little cost as possible and see what works best. Building cheaper launch vehicles will attract new customers and with a lot of launches per year, costs can be spread much wider.
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