> Destin pointed them at NASA SP-287, a document the Apollo engineers wrote and left behind specifically so the next generation wouldn’t have to rediscover everything from scratch. The title is “What Made Apollo a Success.” It has been sitting there, public, for decades. Most of the people in that room had not read it.

> The principle at the center of that document is blunt:

> “Build it simple and then double up on as many components or systems so that if one fails, the other will take over.”

> double up on as many components or systems so that if one fails, the other will take over.”

This is bad advice for a rocket where we are already on the edge of what is even possible. If earth had just a little more gravity it wouldn't be possible to escape our gravity well to a moon. Good engineering is a lot more complex than that simple little advice and a good engineer should already know all the ways that advice is wrong in the real world.