Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Gunpowder and
Fireworks invented
in China 2 century
BCE.
Gunpowder, a mixture
composing of: 75%
Potassium Nitrate
(KNO3), 15% Charcoal
(Carbon), and 10%
Sulfur, provides the
thrust for most
fireworks.
Invented the liquid fuel Hey Mom look, I made a
rocket rocket! =)
“Nell” Flew on March 16th,
1926
“Father of Modern
Rocketry”
Solid fuel: must have air to
combust. Once started, must
burn out
Liquid fuel: some fuels can
react with no air. Engines
can be shut down and
restarted.
German scientists led by
Herman Oberth and Werner Let’s blow
Von Braun picked Goddard’s them up!
brain to develop their own
rockets capable of space
travel.
Hitler forced this research
group to develop a missile
that could carry a warhead
to Britain.
1,100 V-2 rockets would
impact England in World
War II.
Also during WWII, the
Germans pioneered the
first “practical” jet
engine. They would be
the only country to
successfully use jets
during the war.
Shortly after the war, the U.S.
What? I broke
leads the way in developing
the speed of
high performance aircraft.
sound, ya’heard?
Pilots and Engineers notice
terrible turbulence as planes
approach 760 miles per hour-
the speed of sound when
most crashed due to lack of
stability.
Bell laboratories develops
the first aircraft, technically a
rocket plane” capable of
breaking the sound barrier.
October 14th, 1947 test pilot,
Chuck Yeager, becomes the
first person to exceed the
sound barrier in the Bell X-1
Oct. 4, 1957. The Soviet Union launches a satellite into
space named Sputnik 1. It was a very simple device that
took measurements of the upper layer of the atmosphere
and sent information by radio signals down to the planet. It
orbits every hour-and-a-half before it re-entered the
atmosphere and burned up 3 months after launch.
For Russia’s glory and
might! =)
November 3, 1957: Sputnik 2 is launched, and everyone is
stunned to see that this spacecraft has a “pilot” on board—a
dog named Laika (pronounced lye-ee-kuh). The sad part was
that Laika was never going to be recovered—there was no
plan for the dog to ever land safely on Earth. It was thought
to be able to live 10 days in space, but may not have lasted
an hour when some of the life-support systems
malfunctioned.
Warf,warf to the
outer space! =P
The Americans finally get in the act, on February 1, 1958.
Explorer 1 is the USA’s first launched satellite to orbit Earth.
It transmitted valuable new information about the protective
magnetic field around Earth. It orbited for 12 years before
crashing into the Ocean.
Right:
It took
large,
powerful
rockets to
send any
of these
objects
into orbit.
On October 1, 1958, a famous American agency was
formed—NASA. NASA stands for National Aeronautics and
Space Administration. NASA had several goals—continue to
gather data about the Earth’s atmosphere and outer space,
test new technologies for launching rockets, and of course—
beat the Russians!
Epic fail! =(
Vostok 6 blasted off in Russia on June 16, 1963. On board
was the first woman in space, so the Russians beat us again.
Her name was Valentia Tereshkova, and she recorded data
about the atmosphere for 3 days before returning safely to
Earth.
BFFs!
Finally, a space craft you recognize easily. On August 12,
1978, the Enterprise is the first space shuttle to be tested.
Carried on the back of a much larger plane, the Enterprise
“let go” and glided to a safe landing. Now NASA was
confident that the shuttles could do missions on their own
and perform a rolling landing.
See you in a
while
Earthlings!
Yet another space shuttle, the Challenger, blasts off
on April 4, 1983. Part of the 5-daymission involved a
four hour spacewalk where 2 of the crew members
performed repairs of the shuttle. Nice work,
gentlemen.
I see
you
Earth!
=)
Stunned
silence
just a
minute
later
In 1992, a new space shuttle, Endeavour, was launched into
space. It was built as a better replacement to Challenger,
which exploded 6 years prior. After its July 5 launch, three
crewmen space walked to grab a satellite that wasn’t
responding to commands properly. After the longest space
walk ever, the satellite was repaired and sent back into orbit.
Endeavour is scheduled to be retired in 2010 after
performing one last space mission.
Dude, where’s my car? I just parked it There’s no parking lot in here in outer
just beside our space ship. space. Dumb!
Oh no, not again. On February 1, 2003, people in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area
felt a thud slam through their neighborhoods. The shuttle Columbia,
returning from a long, successful space flight, was cruising through the
atmosphere preparing to land in Florida. Days before, during the launch
of the shuttle, a piece of foam damaged the heat shield on one wing of the
shuttle. It didn’t become a problem until the shuttle entered our
atmosphere going around twenty times the speed of sound. The heat
from friction with the air burst through the weak wing, and debris from the
shuttle flying apart was found in several states! All 7 crew members died.
Brave troupe!
NASA had two MAJOR incidents that shook America’s confidence in the
space program. The explosions of Challenger and Columbia slowed
down how often we went into space. Fortunately, one of the big
achievements that happened after the Columbia disaster was
the successful launching of the Hubble Space Telescope by the shuttle
Discovery in 1990. This telescope has given us incredible images of
events and objects far distant in 1991 the universe. Good job,
Discovery.
Dude, where
can I pee here?