Rockets!!!

1. Rockets!!! Rockets!!!!!

2. Today’s rockets are a remarkable collection of human ingenuity that have their roots in the science and technology of the past. They are natural outgrowths of literally thousands of years of experimentation and research on rockets and rocket propulsion.

3. The first rocket! • One of the first to successfully use the principles of rocket flight was a Greek man named Archytas . • Somewhere around the year 400 B.C. he created a flying wooden bird propelled by steam! (this is amazing, the use of steam as a source of energy wasn’t invented until 1690!) • He used the Action-Reaction principle which is not stated as scientific law until the 17th century!

4. History of rockets 300 years after Archytas, Hero of Alexandria invented a rocket-like device called an aeolipile. It too, used steam as a propulsive gas. Hero mounted a sphere on top of a water kettle and the thrust of the gas caused the sphere to rotate.

5. Gun powdered rockets In the first century A.D. the Chinese began experimenting with gun powdered filled tubes. They tided the babmbo0 tubes filled with the explosive powder to arrows and launched them with bows. They soon discovered that these gunpowder tubes could launch themselves just by the powder produced by the escaping gas.

6. Rockets over time

7. Rocket principles • Ok, so how does a rocket work? A rocket in its simplest form is a chamber enclosing a gas under pressure. • Think of a balloon. The balloon is the chamber, your breath or helium is the gas, and the walls of the balloon are keeping the gas under pressure. • What happens to the balloon when you let the air escape? • As the air is escaping it is providing a thrust that propels the rocket in the opposite direction. • The difference between how a balloon flies and how a rocket, like the one on the shuttle, flies is simply how the pressurized gas is produced.

8. Sir Isaac Newton; the father of Rocket science! • During the later part of the 17thcentury Sir Isaac Newton laid the scientific foundation for modern rocketry. • He organized his understandings of physical motion into 3 scientific laws. His laws explain how and why rockets work and how they operate in the vacuum of space.

9. First Law An object at rest will stay at rest and an object in motion will stay in motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. • In rocket flight, forces become balanced and unbalanced all the time. A rocket on the launch pad is balanced. The surface of the pad pushes the rocket up while gravity tries to pull it down. • As the engines are ignited, the thrust from the rocket unbalances the forces, and the rocket travels upward. Later, when the rocket runs out of fuel, it slows down, stops at its highest point and falls back to Earth. • Understanding this law, what information about the thrust do you need to know in order to make a high flying rocket?

10. Second Law Force is equal to mass times acceleration F=ma • Force will be the pressure created by the controlled explosion • Mass is the mass of the gases used to propel it • Acceleration is the change in velocity.

11. Third law Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. • Think of a skateboard, when you initially jump on (action) the skateboard will move in the opposite direction (reaction) to your force. • What do you think is the action-reaction in modern rockets?

12. Let’s build!!!! • Get into teams of four • Assign a team captain to come to the front and collect materials. • As a team decide: how many wings your rocket will have, how big it will be, your team name, and which job each member will have. • Team member jobs include: captain, engineer, data collector, mission inspector

13. A few notes for everyone: • Mission Inspector: please make sure that the team has all the required materials, instructions, and are adhering to the rules to ensure safety • Data collector: Record what everyone is doing in the data table and keep this for the launch day. • Mission Captain: decide on one color, wing amount, and size and pass the information on to the engineer • Engineer: make any necessary calculations to ensure that you are building the most aerodynamic rocket. You are the one who will be putting the parts together.

14. Building procedure • Once you have decided the size of the rocket, wrap the paper around the pvc pipe tightly but not so tight that the pvc pipe wont slide off easily. • Close the paper with tape. Make sure NO AIR CAN ESCAPE. If air escapes your rocket won’t fly so tape it good! • Cut out the amount of wings you want from the sheet. • Using scotch tape, paste only the body of the wings to the rocket. It helps if you bend the wings first. • Again, make sure you tape very well • REMEMBER, THE MORE TAPE YOU USE THE HEAVIER YOUR ROCKET BECOMES!!

15. Procedures continued • Cut off any excess tape you may have as this may cause air resistance. • Cut out the cone (the half circle) from the template and begin to roll it into a cone. It helps if you use your thumb as a guide • THE CONE CANNOT HAVE A HOLE AT THE TIP. Air will escape from there, and again, your rocket will not fly. • After you have constructed a perfect cone attach it to the top of your rocket with tape. Seal all the edges. • After you have ensured your rocket is sealed and ready for flight you may design it and put your team name on it. This component is part of your grade so make it nice.