Re:Musk explains why SpaceX prefers clusters of small engines
by hinkley on Thursday February 08, 2018 @12:34PM
(#16333873)
Just an addendum, while Musk in fact compares the rockets to computers, I have found that what the management takes away from conversations with engineers is often not the most important part.
But typically everyone on the team has opinions about success or failure of the project and we all discount something important. Managers doubly so. They rarely credit the spotters who keep them from falling when their process has huge holes in it.
We aren’t talking about hard drives here. You throw a couple more in and if one fails you just turn it off. Hard drives don’t explode and destroy the hard drive next to them or cause the enclosure to fail.
More rockets is more things trying to explode in only the same direction.
The other responder talked about the operational excellence that can’t be achieved if the numbers get too small. That seems more likely.