Chapter 4: What Is That Big Rocket?

Story Time — The Morning the Sky Roared

Karthik · near Sriharikota

Karthik lived on the coast, not far from Sriharikota, the place from which India sends its rockets into space. His uncle worked nearby, and one special morning he took Karthik to a safe viewing spot beside the sea. “Today,” Uncle said, “you will see something you will never forget.”

Far across the water stood a tall white rocket, pointing straight up at the sky like a giant pencil. Karthik waited, his heart beating fast. A voice began to count down over the loudspeaker: “Ten, nine, eight...”

“...three, two, one — lift-off!” A great burst of orange fire roared from beneath the rocket, and a cloud of white smoke spread across the ground. Then, slowly at first and then faster and faster, the giant rocket climbed into the sky. A moment later the deep sound reached Karthik and he felt it in his chest.

“It is flying! It is really flying!” Karthik said. The rocket became a bright dot, then a thin white trail, and then it disappeared high above the clouds. “Where is it going, Uncle?”

“All the way up to space,” Uncle said. “A rocket must push down with that great fire to lift itself up, and it must travel very fast — faster than any aeroplane — to climb above the sky. Inside it, it carries machines that will help all of us here on the ground.”

On the drive home, Karthik could not stop smiling. He had watched a real rocket leave the Earth. That night he described it to his whole family, using his hands to show the fire, the smoke, and the mighty climb into the sky.

Story Time — The Whoosh of the Balloon

Diya · Mumbai

Diya had watched a rocket launch on television and could not stop thinking about it. “I want to make one!” she told her elder brother, Rohan. He smiled. “A real rocket needs great fire and huge engines. But come, let us make a rocket that will teach you the idea.”

They used no fire. Instead, Rohan helped Diya blow up a balloon and tape it to a straw that slid along a long string across the room. “Now,” he said, “let go of the balloon.” Diya let go. Whoosh! The balloon rushed along the string to the far side.

“It moved!” Diya said. “But how? There was no engine.” Rohan smiled. “The air rushed out of the back of the balloon, and that push sent the balloon forward. A real rocket works in the same way. It pushes hot gas downwards, and that push sends the rocket up.”

Diya tried it again and again, delighted each time the balloon rushed away. “So a rocket pushes down in order to go up?” “Exactly,” said Rohan. “Push one way, move the other way. That is the rocket's great secret.”

Diya made a paper nose-cone for her balloon and gave it a name: “Mumbai Star.” It would never go to space, but it had taught her, with a whoosh and a smile, exactly how the giant rockets fly.