Live From Mars was active July 1996-December 1997.
Teacher Background
Without the mighty Saturn V rockets, there could have been no Apollo
program and no humans on the Moon. Without the smaller, cheaper Delta II
rockets, MGS and MPF would not have been affordable. Weight, cost, thrust,
power... all these are critical to the exploration of our Cosmos. This set
of Activities will expose your students to some fundamentals of rocket
science, and some key principles of physics.
Simple balloon rockets, for example, offer great opportunities for students to explore the Laws of Motion. These laws were first expressed by the English scientist, Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727).
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Objectives
Materials for each team of 3 or 4 students
Materials for whole class
Engage
Show students a video of a rocket or Space Shuttle being launched and continuing up into orbit. (Most NASA Mission films will show this.) Have students note any changes they observe in the rocket's speed and direction. Allow time for discussion and students'sharing of personal experiences with rockets and/or launches.
Explore
Procedure 1. Explain to students that they are going to become flight engineers for NASA, working in small "Rocket Science Teams", and that their mission is to investigate how rockets work. This will involve some fun experiments with rockets made from balloons and, in the process, testing Newton's famous Laws of Motion. Place Newton's Laws of Motion on chalkboard. This Activity will illustrate two of these laws. 2. Demonstrate experimental procedure as outlined on Student Worksheet 1.1.A. Hand out materials, and answer student questions. Then allow Rocket Science Teams time to construct their rockets and complete the experiment, recording data on individual worksheets as well as collecting all the teams'results on a class data sheet or chalkboard. 3. Discuss the results of the balloon rocket experiments with the students. In particular, ask the following:
Expand/Adapt/Connect Research (using print or on-line sources) the Delta II rockets chosen by NASA for Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Pathfinder. When were these rockets designed and built? Have they been used on other space missions? What are their strengths and limitations?
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VOCABULARY acceleration action/reaction balanced force friction launch orbit payload rocket |
Suggested URL
http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/MPF/index0.html