Birth of the Rockets

Here, you know about rockets to the moon, we hope you like these!

Rockets

Rockets carry satellites and people into space. A rocket burns fuel to produce a jet of gas. The hot gas expands rapidly and is blasted downwards causing a force (the thrust) to push the rocket up.

Birth of the rocket

The first liquid-fuelled rocket was launched in 1926 by an American, Robert Goddard. It reached 12.5 m (41 ft). The flight lasted 2.5 seconds.

First in space

The first person in space was the Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin. He was sent up in Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961 for a 108-minute flight

.

On return, Yuri Gagarin parachute from the Vostok 1 capsule 7 km Gust over 4 miles) above the ground.

Launch of the Long March 2C rocket from the Jiuquan Space Centre, China, on August 19, 1983. Its main cargo was a photographic imaging satellite. Long March 2C was 35.1 m (115 ft) long and 3.3 m (11 ft) wide.

To escape Earth's gravity, a rocket has to reach just over 11 km (7 miles) per second. This is called the escape velocity

Biggest and best

The Saturn V were the largest, and most powerful, rockets ever built. They were used 13 times, between 1968 and 1972, including for the first moon landing.

Types of rockets:

  There are many different kinds of rocket.

•                         Reusable space shuttles carry people to and from the space station.
•                          Saturn V were the largest rockets ever built. They were used to launch all the moon                       landings.
•                           Firework rockets are used for celebrations.
•                         Military rockets have been used for hundreds of years.
  
  
  
•                        Experimental rockets provide information about fast and high flight.
•                       Some satellites have small rocket engines to position them once they are in orbit.

Regular launches Today, rockets such as Ariane 5 are used to launch satellites into space. A satellite is a rocket's payload, or cargo, whose size determines whether it is sent up by a small or large rocket.

Ariane 5  launch vehicle. The main tank contains 25 tonnes (27.5 tons) of liquid hydrogen. The tubes on each side are solid fuel boosters that supply extra power for lift-off.

Moon journey

During the 1960s there was a race between the USA and the former Soviet Union to put a man on the moon. The USA landed the first man on the moon with Apollo 11 in 1969.

Apollo 11 reached the moon because of a huge rocket called Saturn V. Most of Saturn V contained the fuel needed to blast it into space. Three astronauts sat in a tiny capsule at the top of the rocket.

What was Apollo 11?

 Apollo 11 was made up of three modules, or parts: the tiny command module, the service module, and the lunar module.

The Eagle has landed

The lunar module (the part of Apollo 11 that landed) was also known as the Eagle. It touched down on the surface of the moon on 20 July, 1969.

The lunar module computer on Apollo 11 had just 71K of memory. Some calculators can now store more than 500K. The lunar module was nicknamed the Eagle.

Men on the moon

On 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the surface of the moon. He was  joined by Buzz  Aldrin. A third astronaut, Mike Collins, remained in orbit with the command and service modules.

What did they do?

Armstrong and Aldrin spent almost 22 hours on the moon. About 2.5 hours of this was spent outside the Eagle, collecting rock and soil samples, setting up experiments, and taking pictures.

What was it like?

Buzz Aldrin described the moon's surface as like nothing on Earth. He said it consisted of a fine, talcum-powder-like dust, strewn with pebbles and rocks.

Here comes Earth

 Instead of the moon rising, the astronauts saw Earth rising over the moon's horizon it looked four times bigger than the moon looks from Earth.

How did they talk?

There's no air in space, so sound has nothing to travel through. Lunar astronauts use radio equipment in their helmets.

We have transport!

Three later Apollo missions each carried a small electric car, a lunar rover, which allowed the astronauts to explore away from the lander. These were left on the moon when the astronauts left.

Splashdown

The astronauts returned to Earth in the Apollo 11 command module. This fell through the atmosphere and landed in the Pacific Ocean. A ringed float helped to keep it stable.

      

                   Thanks for viewing!