Page 6 - Curriculum Visions Dynamic Book

The first steps
Two challenges face anyone trying to get a spacecraft
into space. The first is how to escape from the Earth’s gravity, and the second is how to survive in space. For manned spaceflight there is a third, and perhaps the biggest challenge of all: how to get back to the Earth safely. This book deals with all these aspects up to the time of Apollo and Voyager in the early 1970s.
From arrows to rockets
The first steps into space do not begin with building a spacecraft. They begin on a much simpler level with a little science. Then, once we grasp some basic science ideas,
it becomes possible to move toward the technological challenges of space travel.
Have you ever looked closely at an arrow? It is a long shaft, sharpened at one end and with a set of feathers, called flights, at the other. The arrow is long, thin, and pointed so that it can fly through the air with the minimum of air resistance. But a shaft on its own is uncontrollable. The flights at the end are what make it fly in a straight line.
 A rocket is a reaction engine.
REACTION
 Traditional use of a bow and arrow.
For all developments that have occurred with the Space Shuttle and International Space Station see Volume 7: Shuttle to Space Station. For modern satellite missions see Volume 8: What satellites see.
ACTION
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