Why do we still expect “successful failures” on rocket launches and not just scale up or scale down the same design on successful rocket ships and launch pads to make bigger or smaller ships with more stable structural material?

Question

Why do we still expect “successful failures” on rocket launches and not just scale up or scale down the same design on successful rocket ships and launch pads to make bigger or smaller ships with more stable structural material?

In: 1598

Answer 1

It applies to many complex system; some things can scale linearly and some exponentially. And if you have a lot of factors in play it can be quite hard to get all of them scale right.

Imagine a 100x human in size. Will that bone and muscle structure hold everything together?