All the pioneers of space exploration began their journey with rocket modeling. True, this was fraught with great risk, since the models worked on solid or liquid fuel, and therefore exploded after a time. But it was they who paved the way for large space rockets and modern astronautics. You can build a model of an aircraft using the same principle of jet thrust as a Soyuz or Proton launch vehicle. Her engine will run on mixed “fuel”: hydrogen oxide (ie water) + compressed air. In principle, powerful American engines ran the same fuel, sending the Shuttles into orbit, and the Apollo to the moon. Proud of kinship!
Before you make a rocket out of a bottle, we’ll start making the launch pad. Its main purpose is to mount a filling valve through which
compressed air will enter the rocket’s “fuel tank”
. The launch pad design is arbitrary - even a simple metal scrap in the shape of the letter "p", at least a complex structure resembling a launch complex on Baikonur. The wider the launch pad - the foundation of the platform - the greater the stability of the entire structure. For greater stability in the corners of the site, drill holes to help you attach it to the ground.
Fuel valve - composite design. Its basis is a cork, which should tightly clog the "nozzle" of a water-air engine. We insert the nipple from the old
camera of a bicycle or car tire into it. It must be fixed so that the air, passing through the hose to the bottom of the launch pad, enters the "fuel tank". Then the valve is fixed in the hole of the starting table, the stopper up.
The next part of our launch pad is the trigger. It’s not enough to know how to make a rocket out of a bottle - you need to create enough pressure in it for high flight. The trigger is needed so that it does not take off prematurely. It is made of four corners along the edges of the starting table with openings to each other so that the u-shaped wire bracket freely passing through them reliably holds the neck of the bottle. The rope tied to the bracket must be of sufficient length so that the "fuel" from the rocket does not douse the launching rocket and observers.
The shells of our rockets are plastic bottles for water. To make the rocket more stable in flight, a fairing can be attached to the top of the "fuel tank" with tape, which will serve as the top of another bottle. This is, so to speak, the basic design. How to make a rocket from a bottle further - let your imagination tell you: you can paint with colors of all the colors of the rainbow, you can try to turn it into some kind of real coloring of space rockets, attach aerodynamic stabilizers. What rockets are today that enthusiasts make bottles with their own hands!
On your marks! Our rocket, before it is finally installed on the launch pad, is almost completely filled with water. The pump pumps air into it. Pressure and tension are rising. Three, two, one, start up! Our simple design is able to rise to the height of a ten-story building.
And what, in fact, is the use of knowledge regarding how to make a rocket out of a bottle? We don’t know. Perhaps a quarter of a century later, the future Chief Designer will tell you about this, collecting today his first, albeit bottle, rocket ...