Let’s take the example of a rocket going to the moon. You might have people say that the mission has 80% probability of success, but maybe if X is done the probability might go up to 90%. Think especially about the case where nothing similar has ever been done before.
Is there some actual math or is it just rhetorics?
In: Engineering
There’s a lot less guess work than you suggest by the time a thing like the moon launch happens, but there are still guesses and probabilities in there.
When there is an unknown, experiments happen. Those experiments are repeated and refined until the probabilities are known, or at least comfortable.
Then weird math and debate happen to combine and overlap the probabilities help land on the overall numbers.
With things like space launches, especially when lives are involved, people work really hard to see that probability ends up to be pretty close to 100% likelihood of success, even when failures happen.
In the launch example, different fuels, fuel containers, delivery mechanisms, engines, ship construction, control systems, and more are all individually understood, and combined to make sure they work together well. Very little “shrug and see” happens.
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