Hot Water Rockets
A hot water rocket (or steam rocket) is a water rocket which uses hot blast water as its propellant. Water is kept in the rocket under pressure, at below its boiling point at that pressure. As it exits through a rocket nozzle, the pressure drops and the water instantly boils and expands against the nozzle and this greatly increases the exhaust speed and thrust.
The idea of such rockets was conceived by Germany before the Second World War, with the suggested use of an alternative rocket engine for launching fighter jets.
Read more about this topic: Water Rocket
Famous quotes containing the words hot, water and/or rockets:
“One that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying
Tiber in’t.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry,”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“The Thirties dreamed white marble and slipstream chrome, immortal crystal and burnished bronze, but the rockets on the Gernsback pulps had fallen on London in the dead of night, screaming. After the war, everyone had a car—no wings for it—and the promised superhighway to drive it down, so that the sky itself darkened, and the fumes ate the marble and pitted the miracle crystal.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)