Many vehicles used in space travel are constructed with redundant systems to protect flight crews and their valuable equipment. In other words, backup systems are included within many vehicle components so that if one or more systems fail, backup systems will assure the safe operation of the given Component, and thus the entire vehicle. Consider one particular component of the US space shuttle that has n duplicates (that is, one primary component and n-1 backups). Each of these systems functions, independently of the others, with probability 0.98. As long as at least one of these systems is functioning, this shuttle Component functions successfully.