Ever since I was a little kid, I loved looking at the Moon. Fascinated. Thinking about how big and far our faithful shining companion actually was. You know, I honestly think that I am the one and only person in this whole wide world who was in fact also fascinated when I heard about the opportunity to write a VWA. I CAN FINALLY EXPLORE MY MOON!! Or to be concrete, I wanted to explore how to get there. So, I used my VWA to investigate the launch of the Artemis 1 Mission, the first mission of the Artemis program, a project of the NASA to reach the Moon again after a break of a whole 50 years.
Then comes the regret…
The moment I opened my laptop with my hands at the keyboard, ready to start writing… my mind went blank. Completely blank. No ideas. There goes the excitement.
So, what I did back then was switch my starting approach. I got my hands off the keyboard and my nose into a pile of books. And I read and read and read, till I knew all and everything about the physics and technology of rockets.
1. The Rocket: Space Launch System (SLS)
We don’t just want to go on a trip to the next continent, but we want to go the Moon. For that, just any common rocket certainly won’t be enough. What we need is the Space Launch System, or just SLS, world’s most powerful rocket ever built. This was the first part of my VWA. I went through pictures, graphics, and official NASA guidebooks of the SLS, getting impressed again and again what enormous progresses humanity has made in their technology.
2. Rocket Science: The Physics BTS
Now, while technology is steadily advancing, the core science will always remain the same. Again, I’m not only talking about just any science, but about rocket science — the king of all sciences. Naturally, merely a VWA was not enough to explore the whole of rocket science which is why I only filtered out the very basics of it, e.g. Newton’s Laws, Tsiolkovsky’s Equation.
3. SLS + Science: Practical Applications
After getting to know the SLS and understanding the physics of how a rocket works, the next step would be applying the scientific aspects to the launch of the SLS in order to analyse it. And the practical application just confirmed what was already known: The SLS is AWESOME!
Finally…
As simple as it might seem to sound, let me get one thing straight: The VWA was one hell of a torture. Well, it actually was rocket science. But in the end, all it took was some research and getting emotionally involved in my topic and my hands just kept writing on their own and before I knew it, I had reached the final page of the VWA. So all I want to tell you: Just boost yourself with enough childish curiosity and the VWA might turn out to be more than just hell 🙂
Was sagst du dazu?