Optional: tripod with phone or video camera.Metric ruler, tape measure, or meter stick.It is ideal to have a hard, flat surface, like a paved patio or driveway. Outdoor space next to a tall exterior wall, with nothing above it, where tape can be applied with permission.Painter's tape can be purchased at most hardware stores or online at Optional: Construction paper, any color (1 sheet) transparent tape and scissors.TheseĪre available from online vendors like Amazon. Plastic film canister with a lid and tight seal.National Center for Education Statistics, (n.d.).Retrieved September 1, 2009.įor help creating graphs, try this website: Of particular interest may be the webpages on "Rocket Thrust" and "Combustion." The following NASA website has information on everything you have ever wanted to know about rockets. How will different amounts of baking soda and vinegar affect the launch height? While trying to answer this question you might not be launching the Space Shuttle, but you will still have messy fun escaping the force of gravity for a few seconds with your own rocket! When the pressure (or push being exerted against the inside of the canister by the carbon dioxide gas) is great enough, the canister's lid will pop open and the rocket will launch. You will mix baking soda and vinegar in a capped film canister and take advantage of the pressure the carbon dioxide gas creates in the canister to launch your own small-scale rocket. (You do not need to know acid/base chemistry to do this science project, but if you want to learn more about it, you can check out the Science Buddies resource Acids, Bases, & the pH Scale.) Carbon dioxide is what makes soda fizzy and bubbly, which is why you see lots of bubbling and foaming when you mix baking soda and vinegar together. Based on acid/base chemistry, the reaction produces water This reaction is shown in Equation 1 below. In this chemistry science fair project, you will become a rocket scientist, but instead of using rocket fuel and oxidizers, you will use baking sodaĬH 3COOH) to make a different kind of chemical reaction that can launch a small-scale rocket. Mixing the fuel and oxidizer together correctly is complicated and something that real rocket scientists work hard to perfect. This is an example of Isaac Newton's third law of motion, which states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The pressurized hot gases are pushed out from the bottom of the rocket and thus, the spacecraft is thrust upward. Altogether, the combustion in the spacecraft's rockets produces great amounts of exhaust gas at high temperatures and pressure. At the same time, a great amount of heat is produced because combustion is an exothermic reaction (it makes energy, in the form of heat and/or light). However, the Space Shuttle's two solid rocket boosters used aluminum powder as the fuel and ammonium perchlorate as the oxidizer.ĭuring combustion, new compounds are made and these are called the exhaust. For example, on the Space Shuttle the orbiter's three main engines used liquid hydrogen as the fuel and liquid oxygen as the oxidizer. Usually the fuel is an organic compound (containing hydrogen and/or carbon, and sometimes even metals). Combustion is a fast chemical reaction between a fuel and an oxidizer (such as oxygen) where the fuel is burned or oxidized. Rocket engines function on the principle of combustion. On the right in this picture you can see the Space Shuttle and its three main components: the orbiter (the white winged plane in the middle), the large external fuel tank (behind the orbiter), and two solid rocket boosters (also behind the orbiter, on the left and right sides).Ĭontrary to popular belief, it does not take an explosion to get a spacecraft off of the earth. Rocket engines on spacecrafts, like NASA's Space Shuttle (shown here), use a type of chemical reaction called combustion to launch the spacecraft. At launch, the two solid rocket boosters, along with the orbiter's three main engines, would power the liftoff. It had three major components: the orbiter (a winged "space-plane" which held the astronauts and different kinds of payload), the large, dark orange-colored external fuel tank, and two solid rocket boosters. The Space Shuttle did operational flights for 30 years, from 1981 to 2011. One well-known spacecraft that you may have seen launch is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s Space Shuttle, shown in Figure 1 below. All rockets depend on combustion to provide the thrust that is required for a vessel to overcome the force of gravity and climb into space. Have you ever watched a spacecraft launch on television or seen one live? One question that may have crossed your mind when watching this awesome spectacle is, "How does a spacecraft lift off and get into space?" The simple answer to this question is that the spacecraft has engines that lift it into space.
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