Make: Rockets

Chapter 14. How High Will It Go?

Rockets obey the same basic laws of physics as anything else, and we can use those laws to figure out what will happen to a rocket during flight. We can predict (roughly) how high the rocket will go, what its maximum speed will be, and what the acceleration force will be on the rocket and anything it carries. Being able to predict the altitude is especially useful, since, as we saw in Chapter 5, that tells us how large a flying field we need. It might also clue us in on whether we even want to fly a rocket that day. For example, if I expect a rocket to break 1,000 feet in altitude, I generally won’t fly it unless the wind is pretty calm. Part of the reason is that I don’t want to lose the rocket. Part of the reason ...