To Infinity and Beyond!

When you look up into the sky, there are a lot of things you might see. Maybe some birds, a lot of clouds, and if you're lucky, the occasional airplane effortlessly gliding through the sky. But when you go inside an actual airplane that is ascending through the air, you feel a terrible tremble rocking throughout the whole vessel. Let's go one step further. If an airplane is bad, think of how ridiculous it must feel to be in a rocket while it is blasting off into space!

An airplane is able to ascend into the heights beyond by using jets. These jets propel the airplane up and forward using the properties of thrust and lift. Then why is a rocket so different? Actually they are both quite similar. A jet plane intakes first intakes oxygen and then compresses it. A fuel mixture is then introduced into the chamber and this is ignited. The exhaust is used to push the engine and the airplane forward while it also is used to turn shafts so this process can repeat itself. 

A rocket on the other hand focuses more on the final step of the process, the propulsion step. A rocket uses stored propellant to travel at high speeds. The key aspect in propulsion is that the process is exothermic. The propellant in the combustion chamber (which can be either a liquid or a gas), is ignited with fuel and oxidizer components at very high pressures. The propellant used has a low specific heat so that when combustion occurs, the temperature of the gas drastically increases. After the gas product travels through a propelling nozzle, the heat energy of the gas propels the exhaust at very high speeds down and out the nozzle of the rocket. By using propellants with low degrees of freedom, the thrust produced is generally straight up, reducing waste in propulsion. Likewise, the pressure building up in the combustion chamber of the rocket has an effect. Due to an unbalance of pressure, the rocket engine is only allowed to travel one way, upwards. While the high velocity exhaust is being pushed downward, the unequal pressure pushes the rocket upwards, allowing rockets to soar through the air in a matter of seconds. 

Rockets have been so beneficial to us because they have become the first step to exploring the great beyond. The only way different missions can be made to Mars and Saturn is due to the rockets sending the spacecrafts into space. Maybe if we're lucky, flying by rockets will become so common that one day each of us can explore the solar system too!