<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">On Jan 3, 2018, at 10:21 AM, John Clark <<a href="mailto:johnkclark@gmail.com">johnkclark@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr"><font size="4">I hope it works but one thing that makes me nervous is the first stage has 27 small engines, that's 27 ways things can go wrong. The Apollo moon rocket had 5 large engines, the USSR tried to make something comparable with their N1-L3 rocket but the first stage had 30 small engines instead of 5 large ones and it blew up every time they <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">tried</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"></div> to launch it.<br></font></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div>To be sure, they’ve been doing the nine engine thing for a while and even dealing with problems like engine failures during otherwise successful flights... They can survive engine failures and continue to orbit. Then again, didn’t they blow an engine a couple of months ago during testing? I mean unexpectedly.<div><br></div><div>And I don’t disagree with your abstract point: more complex systems tend to have more things that can go wrong.<br><br><div><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>