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Asked by spencer1x to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 12 Mar 2012.
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Adam Stevens answered on 12 Mar 2012:
I do!
There are lots of different rocket fuels. However, they all require a fuel and an oxidiser. The fuel actually doesn’t matter that much, as long as it will ignite, the oxidiser the important part.
So they best fuel and oxidiser is pure hydrogen and oxygen, which ignite very easily and produce a high specific impulse. However, they can’t make a lot of thrust, which is what you need to get off the ground. That’s why the shuttle also had solid rocket boosters, which use ammonium perchlorate as the oxidiser and aluminium (just pure aluminium powder) as a fuel (plus some other stuff to make it run better). These are essentially big fireworks!
However, once you’re in space you don’t need fuels like this. The steering jets on spacecraft often use cold gas, which they squirt out in one direction to push the spacecraft in the other. They don’t need any oxidiser and you don’t have to ignite them.
Other types of rockets use different chemicals, like kerosene and oxygen, nitrogen tetroxide and hydrazine, or even hydrogen peroxide (bleach!).
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Leila Battison answered on 12 Mar 2012:
There are two types of rocket fuel, both used for different purposes.
Liquid fuels are more efficient, and they can turned on, off, or have the strength of the burn controlled. So they are good for sending things into orbit, where a specific height needs to be reached.
Solid fuels come (unsurprisingly) as a solid, like gunpowder. They are easier to handle and store than liquid fuels and pack more punch, because they can fit in more fuel in a space. They give lots of thrust, and so are usually used as the first stage of a launch, to escape Earth’s gravity.
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Karen Masters answered on 12 Mar 2012:
Not off the top of my head. It’s stuff which expands a lot when it gets hot so that it can shoot out the back of the rocket and make the rocket go forward (Newton’s 2nd Law).
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