Today we're diving into the ageold question: "How many engines is too many?" From SaturnV to SpaceX's Starship, we explore the evolution of rocket design and the surprising statistics behind engine reliability.
TL;DW: More engines mean more failures, but more engines also mean more redundancy. Through superadvanced analysis (random numbers in Matlab) I figure out where the cutoff is, and when adding more engines ends up being a net benefit. Spoiler: SpaceX is a competent engineering company... go figure.