So, you want to go to space. What’s that? You don’t want to go to space? Well, this guide may or may not come in handy later if you change your mind on going to space, for instance, a large alien species coming to destroy your planet in order to build a new smoothie bar. (I mean, convincing them to use the moon might work, but at the same time, it might not. And when it comes to space exploration, it is always good to be on the skeptical side every now and then.) So just how do you go to space? Well, it’s actually quite simple: You simply just say no to gravity. It can’t pull you down without your legal consent. Although, you are probably thankful for this force as it keeps you from drifting off into the vast, unknown void that is space, where you will survive for a maximum of 30 seconds before your oxygen supply depletes and you are forever alone and dead. And alone. And dead. So yes, gravity is very useful in that case. But when it comes to space travel, then you just have to say no.
Now, gravity doesn’t like being said no to. It will continue pushing you down, and no amount of shouting, yelling, killing, and insulting will make gravity give up. It’s aloofness simply cannot be beat. Either that or it is just a complete airhead, not knowing the meaning of the word yes. And depending on the planet, the aloofness will vary, from being very weak and just letting you go, to pushing you down so hard that you get crushed and regret saying anything in the first place.
So us humans, being the unadvanced and unenlightened species that we are, are just…have to create simple, relatively neolithic tools to help us get to space. One of these tools is the rocket. A rocket, by definition, is something that is only and only will burn fuel. And, boy, do those rockets need fuel. A lot of it. Rocket boosters will use 11,000 pounds of the substance… per second. As you can already guess, saying no to gravity is simply harder than just attaching a giant spring to the ground and springing it. Gravity will also probably not listen to the spring as well.
Now, designing a rocket is very difficult. You can’t only take into account gravity — you also have to take in account for air resistance, wind speed, humidity, temperature, and the amount of skeptics and flat-earthers watching the launch and trying to prove it wrong with their theories that have been scientifically disproved multiple times.
The air is one of the most important parts when it comes to trying to say no to gravity. Gravity knew that people were eventually going to say no — so it brought a lot of air down here from when the universe was created. Some of that air, I’m afraid, is very, very hot. So the people who build the rockets have to add weight just to make these aerodynamic lids at the top of the rocket. This adds more weights, so you have to add more fuel, which adds more weight. This becomes the paradox: the more fuel, the further it can get, but the more weight it requires. So the people who build the rockets will have to design special funnels, hulls, and fuel tanks in order to just barely get above the force of gravity trying to combat all the naysayers. You also must count the weight of the bits and bobs such as the air tank, the computing processors, the thermal conductors, and the people themselves that are required to control the rocket into space. The rocket also will have to break itself off into little pieces to help with control and, as we have said many times earlier, to say no even more to gravity. This, as you can probably imagine, takes a lot of time and money. You also have to take into account the training that the astronauts have to go through.
As you can see, saying no to gravity isn’t that easy. It’s harder, though, to look your mom in the eyes while she is yelling at you for getting a bad grade on that math test that won’t really matter 20 years from now.
