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

Scaling up a design doesn’t give scaled up performance. I can make a model of a skyscraper with mashed potato. That does not mean I can scale that up and have a full sized skyscraper made of mashed potato.

Also often new designs are trying new technology, be that new materials, or more complex ways of building your design, or maybe a simpler way of building things. New designs try new things which are sometimes wrong.