Chemistry of the Rocket Fuel

      Rockets are one of the ways that help explore space. Rockets allow people to launch satellites, and some of those satellites are engineered to help explore space. Without rockets, it would be very hard to understand space since the satellites that are out in space produce much more accurate and precise information. For example, the Kepler Space Telescope(a satellite that explores planets in different places around the galaxy) was able to gain lots of data on exoplanets. The observatories on Earth are not able to use such accuracy as Kepler Space Telescope. Without rockets, satellites like these can not be launched into space. This post will be about how the physics and chemistry of rockets(this will be oversimplified because rocket science is a very complicated topic).

 First, let's start off with the chemistry of rockets. There are different types of rockets, but for now, we will be talking about liquid fuel rockets. In rockets, there are many different types of fuels such as cryogenic, hypergolic, and petroleum, but for now, the type of fuel we will be talking about is cryogenic. In this type of fuel, there is liquid methane. Liquid oxygen is then used to help ignite the liquid methane. (A reaction like this is called a reduction-oxidation reaction, a.k.a redox reaction. In this type of reaction, a substance would give electrons to the other substance. The substance that is giving off the electrons is called the oxidizer and the substance that is taking in the electrons is being reduced). Also, this type of fuel is being tested for long-range missions such as going to Mars.   

 This is in a liquid fuel rocket, the main fuel, liquid methane, is put into a tank and under it, there is another tank that holds liquid oxygen. It is then pumped into a combustion chamber, and in there the two chemicals react and this creates power need to lift a rocket into space.

   
 
    Now here comes the physics of rockets. When the chemicals react and burn in the rocket, it must have enough force to move the rocket. So, this would convert the chemical energy produced by the reaction to kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is the energy produced when something is in motion. Rockets would also have to follow Newton's 3 Laws of Motion. Here are the three laws of motion: 1. an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force, 2. force is equal to mass times acceleration, 3. For every action, there is an opposite but equal reaction. The first law allows the rocket to stay in motion when it takes off. It would need to produce enough force to overcome the gravity and escape velocity(this is the speed needed to escape the gravity of Earth)of Earth. The second law is that since the mass of the rocket is so immense, it must have enough acceleration to produce enough force to take off and leave Earth safely. For the third law of motion, the mass of the rocket counteracts the force needed to lift off safely. This is why the acceleration must surpass the mass of the rocket greatly.

  Rockets are getting more complex as time goes by. Private companies such as SpaceX have created a way that rockets can become reusable and not waste precious money and time on creating another rocket. Many people are thinking about colonizing the Moon to get important resources such as Helium-3 but also a sort of "pitstop" for rockets so that the rockets can refuel there and then head on to farther places such as Mars or even Titan(largest moon of Saturn). Some other scientists are also thinking about using solar energy to help refuel the rocket. In conclusion, rockets are a complicated object and as time progresses it will come to a point in which our civilization will make rockets a necessity.