Why is it difficult even today to land on the Moon when the US did it almost 50 years ago with 50 year old technology?
In: Engineering
While some technologies have developed exponentially in the last 50 years, like computers, other technologies like rockets have not had much improvement.
Not all technological development is exponential like computers.
One key difference is that computers are small and mass produced. So each small improvement to cost or power is improving millions of computers. Which leads to more money in finding improvements.
Rockets are made in much smaller quantities and have a high risk of failing destroying valuable satellites or killing their passengers. So any improvement, also has the risk of causing catastrophic failure. A single failure could cost over a hundred million dollars. So rocket manufacturers haven’t taken many risks to improve the rockets or even save on costs.
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