Rocket Science
Rockets fly because of this Newton law - every action has an equal and opposite one.
Newton's Third Law of Motion
The planet nicknamed the “Red Planet.”
Mars
In 1969 he became the first person to set foot on the Moon.
Neil Armstrong
These parts of an airplane produce most of its lift.
The wings
The A-10 Warthog was designed around this one enormous weapon
Its 30mm cannon
Roughly this fraction of a rocket's weight at liftoff is nothing but fuel.
About 85-90%
The closest star to Earth.
The Sun
Elon Musk's company that builds the Falcon 9 rocket.
SpaceX
Lift, thrust, drag, and this make up the four forces of flight.
Weight (gravity)
The SR-71 Blackbird could cruise at about this Mach number.
Mach 3+
Engines avoid melting with this trick: circulating freezing fuel around the nozzle before burning it.
Regenerative cooling
This gas makes up about 78% of the air you're breathing.
Nitrogen
This U.S. agency's name is short for National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
NASA
Reaching “Mach 1” means matching the speed of this.
Sound
This U.S. stealth fighter appears on radar about the size of a Bumblebee.
The F-22 Raptor
The Saturn V's giant first stage burned through its entire fuel supply in about this long.
About 2.5 minutes
Launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, it was the first artificial satellite.
Sputnik
Jeff Bezos's space company, whose logo is a feather.
Blue Origin
Despite its name, the flight recorder “black box” is actually painted this bright color.
Orange
This version of the F-35 can land straight down, vertically.
The F-35B (Lightning II)
A spacecraft has to travel about this fast to stay in low Earth orbit.
About 17,500 mph
The orbiting laboratory whose initials are ISS.
The International Space Station
In 1961 this cosmonaut became the first human to travel into space.
Yuri Gagarin
At sea level, sound - and Mach 1 - travels about this fast in mph.
About 760 mph
The Antonov An-225, the largest cargo plane ever built, could carry about this much.
About 250 tonnes OR 52 Mature Elephants