Interactive Rocketry Tutorial

AN INTRODUCTION TO ROCKETRY

Rockets have been used for the last 1000 years - they were first used in China. Their uses range from rocket powered cars, rocket powered planes, rocket powered boats, rocket packs to space rockets. We will just look at space rockets.

There are two types of space rockets, multi-stage rockets like the Space Shuttle and Apollo Moon Rocket, and fully re-usable rockets like spaceplanes.

Multi-stage rockets have booster rockets or stages, which they throw away when they have run out of fuel. The bits which have been thrown away, then burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere. This can mean that only a small part of the rocket actually goes into space.

Scientists and engineers are now working on fully re-usable rockets. These are much harder to build because they don’t throw anything away, and can be used like an aircraft. To do this, they have to be much lighter than normal rockets, and much more reliable. It could mean that in 20 years time, people may be able to go into space as easily as they fly to America.

This page is maintained by Richard Osborne