Friends, 1926 was a year in history when an American engineer named Robert H. Goddard invented the rocket. He never thought how useful rockets would be for mankind.
Welcome to all of you to the Punjab46 Blogs. Friends, rockets were the single major source with which humans were successful in reaching the moon.
In this blog, we will briefly cover some amazing things related to rockets and space like, two Punjabis who showed a passion to go into space, the footballs’s size space station in space, and many other interesting facts.
Table of Contents
How do Rockets fly?
With the help of rockets, satellites go into space and satellites are the only ones that help us to see live TV shows, weather reports, solar systems, and so on.
Let’s talk about these rockets for a while. The height of the rocket is about 140 feet. It flies in space at an average speed of about 40,000 km per hour. It is said that the distance to space is about 100 km from the Earth.
The fuel of the rocket is the main reason for flying at such a speed. You may be surprised to hear that the weight of a loaded rocket with fuel is about 433 tons. If you want to imagine, then you will understand that it is equivalent to 100 elephants. Mainly, liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen are used in these rockets as fuel, which are in liquid form at very low temperatures.
To maintain this low temperature, the fuel tank is covered with insulation from inside and outside so that the heat from outside cannot enter. An extra layer of bipod ramp is also used with this fuel tank so that the space shuttle to which the astronauts and satellites are attached can go. Now, because this space shuttle is attached to the rocket tank, the greatest danger to the space shuttle is from the heat, which reaches up to around 3000 degrees Celsius.
Therefore, a variety of coatings are used to protect the space shuttle from this heat. This coating material is converted into small tiles and placed on top and bottom of the space shuttle. The coating tile on top is covered with white tiles, which protect it from the heat of 1200, and the dark tiles on the bottom, which protect it from the heat of 2300 degrees Celsius.
The part of the space shuttle which consumes the most heat is the wings of the space shuttle, which are used for the purpose of protecting it from heat, and RCC is used, that is, Reinforced Carbon-Carbon Panel, which keeps it safe from 3000 degrees Celsius temperature.
Cost to Send Rocket in Space?
It costs around $4 billion to send a rocket from Earth to space with a space shuttle. Many companies worldwide have built rockets, but the ones owned by Tesla’s owner Elon Musk are SpaceX company and Amazon’s owner Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company. They both are doing efforts to reuse the rockets at low-cost. These efforts for this rockets industry are much greater than other companies. The main mission of these two companies is to make space travel cheap and attract the public to space.
Who goes first in Space?
Imagine if you were asked to go to a place that no one has ever been to. What would be the answer? But in 1961, the Russian Yuri Gagarin, who was going to space, was the first person to to space without worrying about his own life. And with the courage of that person, 500 million people have traveled to space so far, of which three are Indians.
3 Indians go to Space
1). Kalpana Chawla
The name that can never be forgotten is Kalpana Chawla, born in the city of Karnal, Punjab. She became the first woman of Indian origin to go into space. She later, as an American citizen, flew through NASA twice to go into space. The first time was on November 9, 1997, which was a successful mission.
➡️ Reason behind Kalpana Chawla’s Death
The second flight was on February 2003, which unfortunately, after completing its 15-day mission, started entering the Earth’s atmosphere the space shuttle crashed and could never return. Many reasons for this crash are told. Among them, the most valid one, I think is, at the time of takeoff a piece of insulation was broken and hit the space shuttle, in which Kalpana Chawla and other astronauts were sitting. And it is said that many scientists sitting at NASA knew about it, but they did not want to speak.
2). Sunita Williams
Sunita Pandya Williams is an American citizen who has a connection with India and Gujarat. She became the second woman of Indian origin to go into space, she has gone on a space mission seven times. Sunita Williams also set a record of 195 days spent in the International Space Station (ISS), which was broken by the North American woman Peggy Whitson in 2007, after staying in the space station for 605 days.
3). Rakesh Sharma
On April 3, 1984, for seven days, Rakesh Sharma from Patiala, Punjab goes into space with two other Soviet cosmonauts for doing multiple research and experiments under the Soviet Indian Space Flight Program. It is said that in Russia, astronauts are called cosmonauts.
ISRO (Mission GAGANYAAN)
Now, after so many years, it is the turn of the Indians to go into space. Indian Space Research Organization ISRO In 2024, with the help of other countries, the first human space mission is going to be done, which is called Mission Gaganyaan, whose assumed cost is 10,000 crore rupees. And three Indians will be part of it.
Satellites in Space
Now let’s know about the satellites orbiting the Earth in space. As per reports of January 2022, around 8,200 satellites are orbiting the Earth, from which SpaceX owns the largest. With the help of these satellites, today human life has been able to reach by sending letters, messages, and calls. Mobile towers near our homes are also connecting us to each other by catching signals from satellites orbiting space. All the live radio, TV shows we watch, navigation GPS used for travel, and many more, all of these are in space because of the satellites orbiting the Earth.
International Space Station (IIS)
It is said that there is a football’s size international space station in space. In 10 years, major countries have collaborated on this and completed this ISS in 30 space missions, which costs $150 billion. And now since the year 2000, a team of astronauts has been conducting research in the International Space Station. This space station completes a circle of Earth’s orbit every in 90 minutes. If today humans are thinking of finding a planet to live outside of Earth like Mars, Jupiter, and the Moon, then behind this is the major support of rockets.
So these were some interesting facts related to rockets and space. Do tell us by commenting below. If you found the blog informative, then don’t forget to share this blog with your family and friends to increase their knowledge.
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