How/ why do rockets fly in one controlled direction rather than chaotically all over the place like a balloon when released?
In: Engineering
The nozzle on a balloon is floppy – it flops around all chaotically as air wheezes out of it. The exhaust bells on a rocket are on gimbals – on giant motorized mounts that can aim the thrust coming out. Then, the problem becomes how do you balance a broom on your hand (aka the so called inverted pendulum), but as it turns out we have really good computers that have already solved that problem.. so [much so that you can easily do it at home](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxRWKAauAMo) with a cheap computer and some spare parts.
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