The Rocket Equation

Like so many others, I felt a slight tinge of inspiration while watching the launch of the James Web Space Telescope this week. The launch gave me the sense that, in spite of all the horrid episodes of the past three to five years, at least some small segment of our world is getting back to doing the things that helps us all to feel a little more inspired — a little more hopeful — a little more appreciative of mankind as a species — a little more human.

During the week of Sir Richard’s foray into suborbital space flight, I started thinking that it would be fun to celebrate the event with an article about space flight — more specifically, about rockets: how they work, what we do to get them to work, and what the engineers designing them must contend with. My only stumbling block to writing such an article was that I didn’t know anything about rockets. So I took some time off from my regular schedule of not getting anything done anyway, and began a study of rocket powered flight. My starting point was, of course, the rocket equation.

According to Wikipedia: “The Tsiolkovsky rocket equation, classical rocket equation, or ideal rocket equation is a mathematical equation that describes the motion of vehicles that follow the basic principle of a rocket”. Well ok. But here’s what it really does: it lets you determine the delta-V you can get from the mass ratio of your rocket or…