Rockets were first made in China at around 1100 AD. However these rockets weren't the sort of rockets we used to get to space. These rockets were used solid propellants and were mainly used as weapons. However its main use was for fireworks to celebrate special events in China. But years went by and rockets were soon made into something else. in 1920 rockets emerged and were made into space ships which could take off carrying humans and send them too space. German scientists developed the first rocket during world war two but had to close there project after Germany was invaded. The USA took their idea as well as the Russia.
The first satellite in space was Russia's Sputnik satellite, carried by an R-7 rocket. The R-7 rocket was built by a team of Russian scientists. The team managed to create a rocket big enough to take a explorer called Gagarin into space. Gagarin became the first man in space, but the U.S. astronaut, Neil Armstrong, became the first man on the moon. Soon there was a completion between the USA and Russia as both wanted to be better than each other and they continued to fight to be the best.
We may think that a rocket uses most of its fuel in space and its easy to think that because we have to cover such a large distance in space but however it different as a rocket uses around 50 to 80 per cent of its fuel just to take off. the amount of force it need to lift is incredible. you would need such a larger amount of force to life such an object that in makes prefect sense why we use most of our fuel to lift of. But then again we have to cover such a large distance in space so we need lots of fuel. Well in fact when the space shuttle is in space there is no friction to slow it down. the rocket uses a little bit of its fuel to start it moving but once it has a continuous speed they turn off the fuel and thus it allows the ship to travel thought space. There is nothing to slow or stop the ship so it will continuously go at the same speed until the astronauts stop it or slow it down. So in fact we can afford to use most of our fuel on the very beginning of the trip.
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