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by nomel
731 days ago
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> What you have is a known failing system Absolutely not. Engineering in the real world doesn't work like this. You don't design for perfection. You have intentionally defined specs set to what can be intentionally accommodated in your design. In this case you literally have is a system operating at 1% of the value that can be accommodated. That is not a problem. Something undesirable happening does not necessarily mean the system is failing, or that it's even a practical problem. |
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That's absolutely how it works in engineering. You build fail-safe systems when you can, if safe-life systems where you must.
There is no redundancy in the structural integrity of an aircraft wing. Once it falls off, everybody dies.
Similarly, there are little redundancy margins in a spacecraft propulsion system. You will plan for a thruster malfunction, but if you loose your entire control system in flight, or if you develop 5 different leaks in flight, than it's safe to say you have a failing system. At no point in the design phase were any of those failure modes deemed "acceptable".