Foundation Course in Maths & Physics.
ROCKET SCIENCE
CONTENTS
• What is Rocket Science?
• Is Rocket Science Complicated?
• How do Rockets Work?
• How did Rocket Science Begin?
• Can Rockets use Oxygen from the atmosphere?
• Will we always use Rocket Science?
WHAT IS ROCKET SCIENCE?
• The theory behind blasting something into space isn’t as complicated as you might think.
Putting it into practice, however, is a little bit trickier.
• Rocket science is all about using rocket propulsion to move anything from a firework to a
manned spaceship.
• At the heart of rocketry is Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion, something that’s been
established for over 300 years. It says that every action has an equal and opposite
reaction. If you stand in front of a wall and push it hard, you will move backwards.
WHAT IS ROCKET SCIENCE?
• Similarly, if you stand on a skateboard and throw a heavy object away from you as
hard as you can (don’t try this at home), you’ll roll in the opposite direction. As you
push an object forwards, the object pushes back on you with the same amount of force.
• In a rocket, the ‘object’ being pushed is the end product of burning fuel, which shoots
out of the back of the rocket as the fuel burns, forcing the rocket to move in the
opposite direction.
IS ROCKET SCIENCE COMPLICATED?
• Not at all. There are three basic requirements to a working rocket: get it moving, overcome the pull of
gravity and plot a course. Each of these depends on physics that has been known since Newton’s day.
• Rocketry in empty space is easy, but on Earth we have to overcome our planet’s gravity. This is where a
rocket is so much better than a cannon. Science fiction writer Jules Verne suggested using the latter to fire
a shell containing three passengers to the Moon in the 19th Century.
• But a cannon has to get its payload up to the speed needed to leave Earth’s gravity – the escape velocity –
by the time it leaves the barrel, because after that the only forces acting on it are gravity and air resistance,
which both slow it down.
IS ROCKET SCIENCE COMPLICATED?
• The acceleration to get Verne’s shell to the required 11.2km per second would squish the passengers inside.
But a rocket can accelerate more gently for as long as its fuel lasts, gradually climbing out of the Earth’s
gravity.
• When it comes to plotting a course, once again, all we need is Newton’s physics, which allows us to
understand how the flight path will be affected by the gravitational pulls of the Earth, the Sun and the
Moon (the other planets will have influences too but these are small in a local flight), plus any ‘burns’ of
the rocket engine.
• What makes successful rocketry so difficult isn’t so much the science as the engineering. There’s so much
complex technology in a rocket that it’s incredibly tough to be sure that everything is going to work.
Apollo 11 takes off.
HOW DO ROCKETS WORK?
• All rockets work by the principle of throwing something out of the back to push the rocket
forward, but exactly what that ‘something’ is can vary.
• One of the earliest known devices using rocket propulsion was the aeolipile, which was designed
by hero of Alexandria in the 1st Century AD. It used steam emerging from tubes to spin a metal
ball.
• Most rockets use flammable substances and it’s the energetic exhaust gases produced by burning
them that provide thrust. Originally, such rockets were powered by gunpowder but more modern
designs use either specialist solid fuel or gases like hydrogen, liquefied to maximise how much can
be carried.
HOW DO ROCKETS WORK?
• Space rockets have to be able to work without air, so they need an oxidiser to play the role
of the oxygen in the atmosphere. This might be liquid oxygen or other substances.
• The newest rocket technology is the ion drive or thruster. This is an electric-powered
rocket, where charged particles (ions) are accelerated by an electric field to shoot out of
the back of the rocket.
• Thrusters are most commonly used for steering rockets as they’re very precise but quite
weak. However, they could provide the main propulsion for a rocket that was designed for
use in deep space.
Hero of Alexandria, Greek physicist and
mathematician, invented the first steam-
powered 'rocket' device in the 1st century AD
HOW DID ROCKET SCIENCE BEGIN?
• Apart from Greek steam rockets, the earliest rockets were produced for firework displays
and as weaponry in China, where they date back at least to the 13th Century.
• Metal rockets for weapons began to be used in the West in the 19th Century. They were
difficult to aim but provided an effective terror weapon and became popular for use from
ships, as rockets have no recoil – unlike guns.
• It’s this kind of use that Francis Scott Key, author of the US national anthem, had in mind
when he referred to the “rockets’ red glare”.
HOW DID ROCKET SCIENCE BEGIN?
• When it came to space travel, rockets appeared in stories decades before they were
practical.
• When the American establishment first began work on rocketry in the 1930s, the military
is said to have found the whole concept too much like science fiction, so the development
base in Pasadena, California was called the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, even though it never
worked on jets, only rockets.
• Similarly, the rocket packs used to help aircraft take off from short runways were said to
have ‘JATO’ (jet-assisted take-off) to avoid the ‘R’ word.
A captured German V-2 rocket leaves an
American launchpad, after the second
World War.
CAN ROCKETS USE OXYGEN FROM
THE ATMOSPHERE?
• Space rockets carry an oxidiser, such as oxygen or hydrogen peroxide, to enable fuel to
burn in space. Yet for the first and hardest part of the launch, they are travelling through the
atmosphere.
• If they could pick up oxygen as they went, it would significantly reduce the take-off weight.
So it would be a huge advantage to use atmospheric oxygen while it’s available.
• The problem is that it’s a massive technical challenge.
CAN ROCKETS USE OXYGEN FROM
THE ATMOSPHERE?
• In a hydrogen/oxygen rocket, like many used by NASA, the oxygen has to be compressed
and cooled to around -140°C before it mixes with the hydrogen, which must take place in
around 1/100th of a second, while avoiding ice blockages from moisture in the air.
• This has been achieved in the SABRE propulsion system that was built by the British
company Reaction Engines. The hope is that this will soon be used in working rocket
motors, designed for the SKYLON spaceplane.
SKYLON is currently in development and
does not require a pilot. If successful, it
will allow efficient aircraft-like access
into space.
WILL WE ALWAYS USE ROCKETS?
• Some rockets, like ion drives, are always likely to be useful. But it would be ideal if we
could replace rockets, both to get away from Earth and for the kind of long-term
acceleration needed to make travel to the outer Solar System, or even other stars,
commonplace.
• One alternative to rockets is the space elevator.
• This involves running an extremely long cable from a satellite down to Earth’s surface. A
mechanical device would then be used to climb up it, hauling a payload into space. It’s a
great concept as it would be much cheaper than rockets, and doesn’t need to carry its fuel.
WILL WE ALWAYS USE ROCKETS?
• But we don’t have any materials strong enough to build a space elevator from Earth.
• The cable would have to be nearly 38,000km long. A typical 28mm steel cable of this
length, capable of supporting around 50 tonnes, would weigh 115,000 tonnes. In principle,
though, we have materials strong enough to build a space elevator on the Moon.
• When it comes to deep space, we could replace some of the requirements for rockets with
solar sails, which use the pressure of sunlight to gradually accelerate a vessel, or mass
drivers, which are like external thrusters that push the whole ship.
Russia's Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft carrying the members of
the International Space Station (ISS) expedition.
Thank You!!