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| Uplifting
Elements |  |
Type of Engineering involved:
Chemical
Hydrogen and helium are the most common elements in the Universe. They
are also the lightest. In fact, they are both lighter than air, so balloons filled
with these gases will float.
At the beginning of this century, before
commercial air travel took off, hydrogen was used to fill huge, passenger-carrying
airships called dirigibles or zeppelins. Hydrogen is a very flammable, explosive
gas, and, in 1937, a hydrogen-filled zeppelin from Germany called the Hindenberg
exploded as it was landing in New Jersey. By that point, most other countries
were filling their airships with helium which is an inert gas. Inert gases don't
react with other chemicals and therefore don't burn or explode. Because the Nazi
party was in power in Germany, scientists in the United States, who discovered
how to manufacture helium, didn't share that technology with German scientists.
While using hydrogen for it's lighter than air properties is dangerous, engineers
have found a great way to harness its explosive properties to get things into
the air. Hydrogen is one of the two gases used to lift the Space Shuttle and other
rockets into orbit around the earth - the other is oxygen. When hydrogen and oxygen
are combined they both explode. On the Shuttle, all the energy from the explosion
is channeled towards the ground and the force of the explosion actually pushes
the spacecraft hard enough and fast enough to let it escape the Earth's gravity.
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