But we have had that tech since the 60's.
And you won't be doing four missions in parallel before you've done one that succeeds and as far as I can see with the known technical limitations an economical improvement isn't going to result in a technical success, just in a cheaper failure.
Re:Why Not Mars
by moffkalast on Monday January 02, 2023 @12:48PM
(#34221030)
The tech being there isn't helpful if it's too expensive to use at scale. And the computers then were... passable at best. It would be exceedingly hard to adequately control a rocket for an accurate powered landing at the time.
> you won't be doing four missions in parallel
Well you do have the problem of only having an ideal launch window every 2 years, so you do have to do them at the same time with minimal spacing or wait forever to try again. I think the plan was to only do two ships at a time initially though.
Some things you can compensate and plan for, some failures are just natural or random. Like a micrometeorite hitting two of the main computers or something.
Making rockets reusable and the cost limited to refurbishment and propellant means you can spend the same amount of funding on greater redundancy. Need to build a landing pad on Mars with robots? How about 4 missions in parallel for the same price you'd be quoted by Boeing for just one? Even if three of them don't work out you're still set to continue.