LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Rockets: Fuels
built 254 days ago
Goddard's earliest experiments were with solid-propellant rockets. In 1915, he began to try various types of solid fuels and to measure the exhaust velocities of the burning gases. While working on solid-propellant rockets, Goddard became convinced that a rocket could be propelled better by liquid fuel. No one had ever built a successful liquid-propellant rocket before. It was a much more difficult task than building solid- propellant rockets. Fuel and oxygen tanks, turbines, and combustion chambers would be needed.
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Solid-propellant rockets burn a rubbery or plastic-like material called the grain. The grain consists of a fuel and an oxidizer in solid form. It is shaped like a cylinder with one or more channels or ports that run through it. The ports increase the surface area of the grain that the rocket burns. Unlike some liquid propellants, the fuel and oxidizer of a solid-propellant rocket do not burn upon contact with each other. Instead, an electric charge ignites a smaller grain. Hot exhaust gases from this grain ignite the main propellant surface.
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Variants of the ALH attack helicopter contain rocket launchers from Belgium; rockets, guns and engines from France; brake systems from Italy; fuel tanks and gearboxes from the UK and self-protection equipment from a Swedish company. German companies have been crucial to the design development of the ALH.
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Because of the power and sensitivity of fuels used by rockets, accidents can and have happened. The number of people injured or killed are usually small because of the great care given to the volatility of the materials, but this record is not perfect.
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