The Martian rocket project was a very fun and exciting project and if given the opportunity to work on it again. I would change the rocket we produced slightly because of the results. In the project we had to find a way to get a human (Quail Egg) to and from orbit safely back to earth. This Problem correlates with the book that we are reading in English class “The Martian”. In the book the main character Mark Watney gets stranded on Mars and NASA engineers have to make a plan to get him safely back home.  

     In this project I worked with a great group of people that came in with different sets of skills which allowed us to become a knowledgeable group. I chose the job of Martinez; he is the pilot of the different vehicles in the book. In real life I had to calculate the center of pressure and on launch day I got to pilot the rocket into orbit (Insert the key and push the button). To calculate the center of pressure of the rocket was a big issue, because the measurements of the rocket kept changing because of the weight issue and the various cost of items that were available to us. The actual formula I used was (SA)(Cp)=AD(Nose)+AD(Tube)+AD(Fins) which became pretty easy to use after the multiple times I used it to calculate center of pressure.

     In the beginning stages of the project we had to build an egg capsule to get the astronaut safely to the ground. We came up with different ideas and designs like a square pyramid type shape and the other option that we came up with was a basic cube design. We ultimately chose the square pyramid in the final design and to build it with cardboard and fleece. These materials were proven by experts to be more shock absorbent, better than other materials like cotton balls or chipboard.

     With the actual building of the rockets we had a lot of setbacks. One of the roadblocks we faced was a major weight issue on the rocket. The rocket weighed close to 5.8oz. Which was great for the rocket, it still could be lifted off the ground but the egg capsule would not have time to deploy and the astronaut would have crashed and died. The rocket needed to reach close to the target weight of 3oz. to get off the ground and have enough time to deploy the egg capsule. As a group we deemed that we needed to make the rocket way lighter. We took out almost all of the fleece and cut the rocket body tube in half. The biggest modification of the rocket was taking out the whole cardboard egg drop capsule and put the Quail egg inside the tube of the rocket and wrap it in fleece. This method of protecting the egg was not logical but we had to use a method like this to protect the egg and the risk pulled off and after the launch the egg was alive. All of these modifications made our overall weight go down to a respectable 3.8oz. Which was enough for the rocket to get in the air and have the capsule be deployed. Our other problem that we encountered was that the 3D printed material was way too big for the body tube. We overcame this problem by adding a sheet cardboard to the area between the rocket and 3D printed material. This provided a snug and comfortable fit to connect the rocket together. After the material was placed correctly we put strips of duct tape to ensure that the rocket had no wiggle room.

     On Launch day it was very exciting and an overall review of launch day is that our rocket did not perform as well as we hoped it only reached up to about 23 feet in the air which is 4 ½ Rodney’s and we expected it to go about 60 feet in the air. Our group identified that the probable causes of the results were because of the weight displacement on the rocket was not equally balanced and the rocket just didn't get high enough because of the weight issue. If given this project again I will make sure to know how much the rocket weight limit is before we build it. I will also be sure to displace the weight correctly around the whole body and just make sure to enjoy the process more and not stress over having perfect calculations and a perfect rocket just have more fun.