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> > > Is 2x thrust accomplished by scaling # of engines, or are the engines 'more-thrustful' per unit because of engineering advances?

> > SV first stage had 5 engines, vs 33 on the Starship's booster. Which I think answers your question :)

> it doesnt, please eLI5

I kinda suspect bad faith/trolling, but if not... 6.5 times the number of engines for twice the thrust means that you are getting less thrust per engine.

No trolling, but one of the the things I like to promote on HN is for people to ELI5 as much as possible, given the fact that our knowledge will evaporate over time... so I want people to, as much as possible, divulge as much as one can before they kick the can...

What are you an SME on that should be catalogued.

Yah, I just though this wasn't really subject matter expertise. It's not quite ELI"5", but I thought reasoning using ratios would be universal/intuitive.

Having a whole bunch of engines means loosing a few at launch won't end in disaster. That means you can pursue more high-risk, high-performance engine designs.

The N1 was designed with 30 engines, under that same theory.

It, uh, didn't do so well. As it turns out, getting 30 rocket engines to run at once is not trivial.

More engines make it go fast