A SHORT HISTORY OF ROCKETS

1. A SHORT HISTORY OF ROCKETS

3. Rockets work in a very simple way. Pushing something one way causes the rocket to move the opposite way

4. Isaac Newton discovered how this works and explained it in his “Third Law of Motion” “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”

5. “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”

6. Rocket propulsion has been around for a long time Millions of years in fact! This is the seed pod of the Squirting Cucumber

7. Even animals can be rocket powered! Squid can zoom through the sea under rocket power.

8. So this is how it is with rockets. Something is blasted backwards as the ACTION and the rocket moves forwards as the REACTION

9. Maybe the first man-made rockets were the “fire arrows” used over 800 years ago by Chinese soldiers

10. From then on rockets were used by as weapons. 200 years ago the Nelson’s Navy used then against the French

11. The Royal Artillery had a special Rocket Troop. It fought against Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo

12. Rockets were not only used for fighting. They were also used for saving lives

13. Rocket powered harpoons were used to hunt whales.

14. Rockets were used to shoot down balloons during the First World war.

15. Then two men in particular began to experiment with rockets with liquid fuel. The first was Robert Goddard in America

16. The old stories about travelling to the moon now seemed at least remotely possible!

17. The second was Werner Von Braun in Germany.

18. For many years science fiction stories were written about travel by rocket.

19. When I was little my biggest hero was….. Rocket Man!

20. During the terrible events of World War Two Werner Von Braun designed the V2 rocket. It was the first deadly big rocket weapon. It carried a ton of explosive and it killed many people in England

21. At the end of the war the Americans captured Werner Von Braun and asked him to design rockets for them. The Space Age had arrived.

22. After WW2 the “Cold War “began and Nuclear Weapons became rocket powered.

23. The USSR and the USA were racing to get a human into space. The Russians experimented with Dogs as Cosmonauts.

24. The Americans used chimpanzee Astronauts.

25. A1- Booster launching Vostok 1

26. Werner Von Braun helped the Americans to design their liquid fuelled missiles and space rockets.

27. The Mercury Project eventually succeeded in getting an American into space orbit around the Earth using first Redstone and then Atlas rockets.

28. Russia and America Raced to get into space and even to the Moon Everyone imagined people travelling to space in rockets

29. The Russian Voskhod missions achieved the first spacewalk.

30. The Gemini Project put two American Astronauts into orbit. They were already practising for the Moon landing.

31. The race for the Moon was on. The Americans used the new, powerful Saturn 1B Rocket to lift and test the Apollo Spacecraft

32. Then in 1969 the Apollo 11 mission landed two men on the Moon. The Saturn V rocket was the biggest ever.

33. Apollo put 14 men on the Moon in seven successful Missions.

34. Now we are used to rockets and space exploration.

35. Who knows. One day your life may be saved by a rocket

36. Now we know that certain things are important for the successful flight of a rocket 1. A propulsion system to give thrust

37. 2. Stability in flight. Fins can help

38. 3. The balance of the rocket is important for stability as well. It may need weight in the nose .

39. 4. Streamlining is important for rockets moving through air or water.

40. Of course you never know where a rocket may take you!

41. Perhaps there is life out there after all!

42. What goes up must come down!