This month's meeting was attended by 13 members who heard a talk about rocket fuels. We started with a brief word about the Chinese developing gunpowder powered rockets which adopted a trailing stick to create some form of stability to allow a rocket to be propelled in a reasonably straight line. However, was not until the 1920 and 1930’s when Robert Goddard developed liquid fuelled rocks. He built and fired some 37 rockets and developed several patented designed principles, including the use of cooling pipework around the combustion chamber and the use for gyroscopes for stability.
The talk sided stepped the development of rockets in World War 2 and focussed on various rocket fuels and how they are made. This covered both liquid and solid fuel propellants and also referenced the use of ion engines on small satellites. We quickly learnt that taking liquid rocket fuel was not just a case of taking kerosene and mixing it with liquid oxygen. Most rockets depend on high pressure coupled with high temperatures of gases to propel rockets forward whereas ion rockets relied of low mass high speed propulsion exerted over a long period to gradually accelerate their craft to high speeds for long distance travel.
We had a lot of simply explained complex chemistry in the manufacture the optimal fuels. There were multiple ingredients, catalysts, and processes. By contrast solid fuels were simpler to manufacture, and they could be used in simpler rockets, but only worked on a fire-and-forget principle which is ideal for military missile, but not so good for putting rockets and satellites into space where you need to be able to control the speed and position en route to making sure everything ends in the right place.
Most large rockets are multistage and can have booster rockets to help the rocket on its way for the first stage. Some of the Super Heavy variety now have up to 33 rockets forming the first stage.
Finally, we were told that it can cost up to $900000 to fill up a Super Heav rockets now being used for heavy lift satellite launches, or manned spaceflight. Tony Wardell told us that the American manufacturers of liquid oxygen had to pool their resources to be able to delivery enough fuel for many of the rocket launches.
Finally, we saw numerous large rockets being launched from various parts of the world.