In the modern era, we have used anything from ethanol to methane. This ended catastrophically, but had promising results. He used the incorrect ratio of fuel to oxidizer and made a lot of other mistakes in the process. A few years later, Robert Goddard would also theorize about them, and actually try to build a gasoline and liquid oxygen ( LOX ) powered prototype. Tsiolkovsky, who we mentioned before, theorized a lot about rockets. That would come in the 1900s, just before the Spanish Flu pandemic and the first World War. These had very little to do with space exploration, though. The very first “rockets” were used by the ancient Chinese, who discovered gunpowder by accident while searching for an “elixir of life”. Rockets can be powered by just about anything. Most rockets get up to 400 seconds of Isp. Specific Impulse ( Isp ) – A measure of how many seconds a rocket may hover using X amount of fuel to expend.
Don’t worry though, it’s not- Oh, wait, it totally is rocket science.Īlso, there is another measure for rocket efficiency. How can we quantify efficiency? Is it a ratio or a simple numerical value? Well, it’s complicated.
Just ask Elon Musk.īefore we can make our rockets more efficient, we must first define some standards. That only makes it more rewarding when it does work, however. The issue is, how are we going to fuel our rockets efficiently and safely? Solving this problem has proven to be easy in theory, but incredibly hard in practice. This method of changing velocity is one of only a few that work in a vacuum or extreme temperatures as well. Although the exhaust particles we are shooting are incredibly small, their acceleration produces plenty of thrust. Additionally, his second law states that force is equal to mass multiplied by acceleration. As I’m sure you know, Newton’s third law states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This causes a force to be applied to the spacecraft in the opposite direction. How our beloved Kerbal Space Program is actually an excellent tool for learning real rocket science, and a mastery of physics / orbital mechanics can save your Kerbals!Ī rocket engine, in layman’s terms, is just something designed to shoot hot gas particles as fast as possible.
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