The Citizen Science Project

Citizen science is when the public helps conduct scientific research. Science related to the phenomena under investigation, for learning to engage in the scientific practices involved in the investigation, and for learning about the nature of science. Scientists often work with unstructured data, such as text or images, then use machine learning to build models and make data-driven decisions. A few sources of data are pollen, carbon trapped in ice cores, fish bones, and traditional knowledge passed from generation to generation. By answering questions about your observations, you contribute to helping researchers publish papers, make scientific discoveries and finding better ways to understand our natural world, our human histories and our wide universe.

Physics and Motion of Rockets

Summer 2020, SpaceX performed a successful human spaceflight to the International Space Station. Model rockets have fins to keep the rocket stable as it careens through the atmosphere. Lift, weight, thrust, and drag are the four forces that affect rocket motion. Thrust is the force that produces lift-off, or upward movement of a rocket. Model rockets have fins to provide stability and control direction. To control big rocket flights, they rely on a lot of things, such as, rockets rely on momentum, airfoils, auxiliary reaction engines, gimballed thrust, momentum wheels, deflection of the exhaust stream, propellant flow, spin, and gravity.

Space Shuttle Program

NASA began making plans for reusable spacecraft in 1969 and led to the Space Transportation System from 1981-2011. The Enterprise was the first Space Shuttle spacecraft. It did not have engines or a heat shield, so it did not go to space. It was only used for test flights. Its first test flight was in 1977. Enterprise separates from the shuttle carrier. On April 12, 1981 Space Shuttle Columbia launched into space. In 1990, Discovery deployed the Hubble Space Telescope. Then, in 1998, Space Shuttle Endeavor connected the first American node.  A few years later, in 2003, Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas after reentering earth’s atmosphere. The final space shuttle mission was performed by Atlantis in 2011. The shuttle carried supplies for the International Space Station.  This is a computer generated image of Atlantis docked onto the International Space Station. Its purpose was to provide NASA with an efficient, reusable method of carrying astronauts to and from a permanently manned space station. There were about 135 missions.

About Robert Goddard

Space pioneer Robert Goddard, born in 1882, was the father of the space age and invented the liquid fuel rocket. He held the launch of his liquid oxygen gasoline rocket in 1926. Rockets are simple devices that contain thrust by releasing gases at high speeds. Goddard tried to improve solid propelled rockets fueled by adding gunpowder. The most interesting fact about Goddard is when he invented the liquid fueled rocket. I would not want to go on any adventures because it seems unsafe.