Gloria Skurzynski - This Is Rocket Science: True Stories of the Risk-taking Scientists who Figure Out Ways to Explore Beyond

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Subsidiary Rights:

Copyright 2010 Gloria Skurzynski. All rights reserved. Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents without written permission from the publisher is prohibited.

Skurzynski, Gloria.

This is rocket science : true stories of the risk-taking scientists who figure out ways to explore beyond Earth / by Gloria Skurzynski.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references

ISBN 978-1-4263-0597-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-1-4263-0598-6 (library binding : alk. paper)

eBook ISBN: 978-1-4263-0717-1

1. RocketryBiography. 2. Aerospace engineersBiographyJuvenile literature. 3. RocketryHistoryJuvenile literature. 4. Rockets (Aeronautics)HistoryJuvenile literature. I. Title.

TL781.85.A1S58 2010

629.40922dc22

2009020386

Cover: Liftoff of Dawn from the Kennedy Space Center

Full Title Page: Imagined spacecraft races into space

v3.1

FOR MEGAN ALANE GLORIA LEDESMA, WHO WILL LIVE IN A WHOLE NEW WORLD GS

The author is exceedingly grateful to rocket scientist Ed Skurzynski and to dedicated editor Suzanne Patrick Fonda and art director David Seager for their continuous support. Deep thanks also to Franoise Ulam; to David S. Nolan; Marc Rayman at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Mike Wright and Betty Humphery at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center; Norman Chaffee, Roger Weiss, and Mike Gentry at NASA Johnson Space Center; Gwen Pitman at NASA Media Services; Linda S. Sandoval at Los Alamos National Laboratory; Suzanne DuBeau Rostek at Astrotech Space Operations, Inc; Valerie-Anne Lutz van Ammers at the American Philosophical Society Library; Andrew Ilin at Ad Astra; Roger G. Gilbertson at SpaceX; Jordin Kare at LaserMotive; and, for her continuing inspiration to students, to France Anne Cordova, President of Purdue University and former NASA Chief Scientist, the youngest person and first woman to hold that position.

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STAFF FOR THIS BOOK

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IN THE 13TH CENTURY THE CHINESE DESIGNED FIRE ARROWS TO USE AS WEAPONS AGAINST INVADING MONGOL ARMIES. ()

S ome inventions happen by accident. Two thousand years ago, Chinese scientists searched for a way to make people immortal. They mixed chemicals with liquids and drank them, hoping this would keep them alive forever. Instead, they often died quickly because their experiments contained poisons.

One of the main ingredients in those potions was saltpeter, a potassium nitrate compound found in dry caves in southern China. Alchemists (the scientists searching for eternal life) used saltpeter to dissolve ores and minerals. They learned how to make pure sulfur by heating iron pyrite, also known as fools gold. And they could easily obtain carbon from coal or charcoal. During centuries of experimentation, the alchemists discovered that if saltpeter, sulfur, and carbon were combined, the mixture would burn.

By A.D. 1040 a Chinese official described three combinations of these ingredients to make three different kinds of weapons: a poison-smoke ball, a bomb that burned, and a bomb that explodedbut not violently. Later experiments showed that when extra saltpeter was added to the three main ingredients, the combination exploded with greater force. This became the earliest form of gunpowder, named huo yao, meaning flaming medicine.

AT FIRST, FIRE ARROWS FRIGHTENED MONGOL INVADERS AND TERRIFIED THEIR HORSES. THEN THE SOLDIERS LEARNED TO USE FIRE ARROWS AGAINST THEIR OWN ENEMIES. ()

Hollow bamboo tubes filled with this early kind of gunpowder exploded spectacularly when thrown into a fire. These were the first fireworks. Chinese experimenters attached arrows to these tubes, sealed the tubes at one end, and left the tubes open at the other end. When the gunpowder was lit, a mixture of fire, smoke, and gas flew out through the open end and propelled the weapon forward. Called fire arrows, these weapons werent accurate enough to hit their targets very often, but their loud explosions frightened enemies. Chinese crossbowmen could shoot the arrows as far as 650 feet.