I’m too dumb for maths because I have dyscalculia, but i am always amazed by the engineering crowd on how they could improve efficiency by finding and tweaking just the little things.

Its simple rocket math. Every lb of weight must consume fuel.

Si.pky. 1 lb of weight needs 1 lb of fuel to escape orbit. But the fuel has weight also. So the effective fuel you need to lift the rocket and payload is exponential

The tyranny of the rocket equation. Generally, 1% of weight is payload, 85% is fuel.

scientificamerican.com/…/escaping-the-tyranny-of-…