Thursday, February 14, 2019

R-7 Rockets


We just learned about the PGM-11 Redstone.

Another type of rocket from history is the R-7 Rocket.
Sometimes it's called the R-7 Semyorka, because the Russian word for seven is "Семёрка" which sounds like Semyorka.

After World War II when the Russians brought German scientists to work for their country making missiles, they learned a lot about making missiles, and made the R-1, R-2, and R-5 missiles.
Then they sent the Germans home and started making their own missiles.

The Russians made a missile called the R-7, and it was the first "ICBM" missile which stands for "Intercontinental Ballistic Missile".
This means it could be launched from one continent like Europe or Asia, and fly all the way in the air to land on another continent like North America.

For the first time in history, someone could launch a missile from over 5,000 miles away to bomb another city.
Because this was such a scary thing, it pushed the scientists in the USA to try and make their own ICBMs to fight back if they were being bombed from across the Atlantic ocean.

The R-7 rocket was not just used for war, it was used for space exploration.
Sputnik was the first satellite to be launched into space to orbit the earth.
In 1957 the Russians used a type of R-7 rocket to launch it up into space.
This also pushed the other countries of the world like the USA to make rockets for space exploration.



(from: wikipedia - r-7 (rocket family))


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Seismogram