When you think about the word “Rockets”, what first comes to mind? The landing on moon, NASA, Russian cosmonauts, Elon Musk’s rocket company etc… As kids we are all fascinated by flying and rockets are even more fascinating.
Rockets are traditionally used to launch satellites and Space Shuttles into space and more recently the first civilian crew successfully traveled to space on September 15, 2021. More so, Elon musk aims to send missions to Mars and Rockets will play a pivotal role in its success.
But have you ever thought how rockets operate? How are they built up? What’s the science behind these great endeavors? Surely, you’ve heard the phrase rocket scientist. But what makes a good rocket scientist? Well, my research suggests that it requires proficiency with physics, chemistry, aerodynamics, propulsion, communications, and mathematics.
Over the years, people have done a lot of research, experiments, and calculations with rockets to get these massive machines flying through space. This is exactly what our latest quest is all about. It’s a tiny peak into the science behind launching a Rocket into space.
Our quest began with learning how to design a rocket. The key objectives were to establish what the Rocket needs to do, draw out basic details of what it would look like and what it would be made of. We made diagrams of our rockets which looked a bit funny in the beginning, but it slowly started to take good shape.
Secondly, we researched on how to make fuel for the rocket as it is the most important component. As part of our chemistry course, we learnt about the periodic table and found through research that most rockets use Hydrogen as fuel. It has the lowest molecular weight of any known element and burns with extreme intensity of 5,500°F. The process of burning and exit through the engine at high velocity provides the power or thrust, required to get the vehicle into space.
However, Rockets can be launched with different fuels. In our quest we decided to use our Alka Seltzer and water as fuel for our test launch. Alka-Seltzer is a combination of sodium bicarbonate, aspirin, and citric acid. When you mix Alka Seltzer with water in a sealed container, a chemical reaction happens and it creates many, many bubbles of carbon dioxide gas which acts as fuel for the rocket.
We experimented with launching our Rockets in an open safe space. At first our experiment failed due to one reason or the other but after a few attempts we had “Lift off” and it was a proud moment for our team.
We also completed the task of minimizing fuel requirements by working with different masses of different elements. It helped us understand how different combinations of elements can affect the fuel cost and the energy or thrust of the chemical reaction. This will determine how high the Rocket will go and at which speed. Overall, it may seem like a lot, but it was fun to experiment with rockets and along the way, learn a lot.
