Find out who made the first rocket, how it works, what kinds of rockets there are, how they are used in war, and other interesting facts about rockets in the list below.
We hope that you find these facts about rockets interesting.
Rocket Facts 1-10
1. On April 12, 1961, the Vostok-K 8K72K rocket of the Soviet Union was the first to send a person into space.
2. To get past Earth’s gravity, a rocket must move at speeds of 11,200 mi/s (11,2 km/s).
3. In April 1961, a huge rocket carried the first person into space. He did a round that took 108 minutes!
4. On November 3, 1957, a living dog named Laika was sent into space for the first time by the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 8K71PS.
5. The Soviet Union’s Molniya-M 8K78M rocket was the first to launch a spacecraft that landed safely on a large planet in our Solar System. This happened on January 31, 1966.
6. Since the NASA space shuttle program ended in 2011, people have used a Russian Soyuz capsule to get to the International Space Station.
7. Rocket science is a very important part of aerospace engineering.
8. In space, where there is no air, a rocket can fly, but not a jet engine. A jet plane has a ceiling above which it can’t fly because it won’t have enough air.
9. Rockets move forward with the help of the gases that come out of their engines.
10. A rocket is a machine that moves with the help of thrust from a rocket engine.
Rocket Facts 11-20
11. The Italian word “rocchetta,” which means “bobbin” or “little spindle,” is where the word “rocket” comes from.
12. The first rockets, which were actually fireworks, were made in China during the Song dynasty in the 1300s.
13. Rockets can take both people and spaceships into space.
14. The engine of a rocket moves it forward by using liquid or solid propellant (fuel).
15. A rocket engine, unlike a jet engine, doesn’t need air to work. This means that a rocket engine can work in space.
16. If a rocket isn’t moving at least 7 miles per second, it can’t get away from Earth’s gravity and get into space.
17. In 1861, a Scottish astronomer named William Leitch was the first person to suggest that a rocket could be used to send a person into space.
18. Before 1926, all rockets used some type of gunpowder to power them.
19. Robert H. Goddard made the first rocket to use liquid fuel. It was launched for the first time on March 16, 1926.
20. In June 1944, a V-2 rocket from Nazi Germany was the first one to reach space.
Rocket Facts 21-30
21. On May 15, 1957, the Soviet Union’s R-7 Semyorka missile was the first rocket to be called an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) because it could travel more than 3,400 miles.
22. The Soviet Union’s Sputnik 8K71PS rocket was the first to send a satellite into space on October 4, 1957.
23. On November 3, 1957, the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 8K71PS rocket was the first to send a living animal (a dog named Laika) into space.
24. On February 12, 1961, the Soviet Union’s Molniya 8K78 rocket was the first to send a spacecraft past another planet in our Solar System.
25. On June 16, 1963, the Soviet Union’s Vostok-K 8K72K rocket was the first to send a woman into space.
26. During a rocket’s launch, hot gases are forced out of the bottom of the rocket through an exhaust nozzle. This gives it the power it needs to get off the ground.
27. A typical rocket can go 22,000 miles per hour and put out more than a million pounds of thrust.
28. In the 1880s, a Russian named Konstantin Tsiolkovsky began to work on a theory for rocket space travel.
He figured out how fast a rocket had to go and how much fuel it would need. He proposed using liquid fuel.
29. In 1926, American Robert Goddard launched the first rocket that used liquid fuel.
The flight lasted 2 1/2 seconds, and the rocket went as high as 12.5 meters (41 feet).
30. On July 16, 1969, the United States Saturn V SA-506 was the first rocket to send a person into space and land them on a celestial body (the Moon) in our Solar System.
Rocket Facts 31-38
31. Rockets can be used to send bombs over both short and long distances by the military.
32. Today, people are making new rockets. Astronauts will be on missions in the future. The new rockets will look nothing like the space shuttle.
33. Space shuttles are also launched into space by rockets.
34. When they come back to Earth, rockets use huge parachutes to slow their descent.
35. When it took off from Cape Canaveral on January 19, 2006, the New Horizons broke the record for the fastest rocket launch, going 36,000 miles per hour.
36. The European Space Agency uses the Ariane rocket to launch satellites (ESA).
The agency is made up of 22 European countries that pay for and work on space satellites and experiments.
There are five types of Ariane rockets, and the sixth is now being made.
37. Usually, two rockets are sent into space every week from somewhere on Earth.
38. Rockets have completely changed the world and given us a new way to look at the universe.
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