Airplanes, redundancy and lunar habitats

Abstract

As engineers, we work under the assumptions that we can analyze and design anything with an acceptable level of reliability, given enough time and resources. We also extrapolate our design experiences into new domains, as much as possible, trying to learn lessons from successful designs and applying these to new, different, and perhaps more complex, projects. In many ways, we can learn from the technological evolution of airplanes. Over the past hundred years, airplanes have developed from simple wooden structures built by one or two people using standard materials, to becoming one of the most complex and successful – reliable – structures humans have conceived and built. Perhaps the most complex and successful, given that tens of thousands of people put themselves into these structures daily and survive. The airplane passenger is safer than the automobile passenger.

“Are two safer than one?”