wiki Word: Air Resistance                      

Definition: The opposition of the atmosphere to forward movement; also called Aerodynamic drag.                        

 When a plane flys through the air, the air is pushing back on it creating friction. This is called air resistance. Drag is the force that resists the movement of solid objects through fluids. Fluids include water and air. Because air resistance is drag through air, it is also called aerodynamic drag. (Aerodynamic = having to do with air.) If rockets did not have the tip shaped like an upside-down V, it would probably have trouble launching. The V shaped tip is good because it slices through the air, creating the least air resistance possible.

Insert an imageIn this picture, you can see the blue tip on the rocket. This helps decrease air resistance on the rocket because of it's shape. here

For one of our first labs in science class, we launched water bottle rockets.  The shape of the rockets were the shape of the one in the picture above. You can see that the bottem of the bottle is not the shape of the rocket in the other picture. Because of this flat bottom, more air resistance acts upon it. If we had properly shaped rockets, they would have gone much higher and farther.

Information: "Drag (physics)." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 19 Feb 2008. 26 Feb 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerodynamic_drag>.

Pictures: Pic #1: http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/941/55070744.JPG

               Pic #2: http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/bottlerocket.jpg