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
It’s pretty easy to make a rocket that works with a large enough budget. The really hard part is making a rocket that not only works, but is useful, as in, can carry a payload and launch for a competitive amount of money. That requires pushing the limits, cutting weight wherever possible, and cutting a lot of corners. Rockets are constantly operating at the very limit of their capability and that makes it very easy for a failure to happen if anything goes slightly to far, like a valve that isn’t opening properly and causes pressure to build up slightly too high.
To make it worse, rockets are forced to handle some of the most extreme environments of any machine. Liquids at -150°C quickly combust into gases at 2000°C, with exhaust velocity measured in kilometres per second, hundreds of tonnes of cryogenic propellant in a tank that’s never more than a centimetre or two thick, and aerodynamic forces to rival supersonic aircraft.
The bottom line is, rockets have almost no margin for error because if they did, they wouldn’t be profitable, and that means it’s very easy to push them too far. If that happens, there’s a small nuclear warhead’s worth of energy in the fuel tanks ready to blow the whole thing up.
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