<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><div>On Jan 3, 2018, at 11:26 AM, Dylan Distasio <<a href="mailto:interzone@gmail.com">interzone@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr">Not being a rocket scientist, I guess that makes sense in general, but to John's point, it doesn't seem like a great idea when you are increasing complexity in a system that is somewhat prone to blowing up. <div><br></div><div>In any case, I wish them a lot of success with the launch and am excited about the prospect of a rocket with that much power coming back into the space exploration toolkit.</div></div></div></blockquote><br></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Not rocket engineer either... I think they’ve demonstrated some success with the modular scalable approach. Building a bigger engine would mean basically having to go through the whole design, develop, test, and use process again for just that one component. Now they have a reliable engine with many successful flights. They’ve also tested some failure modes in flights — shutting down engines and such.</span><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">IIRC, no engine explosion has caused a failure of the Falcon 9 family of rockets in flight or on the pad. The explosions were caused by other components — not the engines.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I believe we’re all hoping for success here. If it all goes well, SpaceX will have a Mars-ready rocket. That might mean that Musk’s aggressive plan to put people on Mars in a few years will come to pass. <br><br></span><div><div style="line-height: normal;"><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: 20px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Regards,</span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: 20px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: 20px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Dan</span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: 20px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap":</span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><font color="#000000" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://mybook.to/SandTrap" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">http://mybook.to/SandTrap</a></font></div></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><br></div><div><br></div></div><div><div style="line-height: normal;"></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>