About

This interactive is used in Chapter 5. Your mission: to determine how fast to fire a rocket so that it escapes the gravity of its planet. Your tool: the displayed escape velocity calculation (based on Newtonian physics). Your options: choose one of four planets in our Solar System, or make up a new one with radius and mass you choose. Then set an initial velocity and FIRE! Does it matter whether you point the rocket horizontal or vertical? What will the rocket’s path look like at different velocities? Find out with this Interactive.