Target Age Group
Middle School

Ojbective
Students will understand the size of space vehicles by comparing them – virtually - to other landmarks near their home or school.

You will need
computer with Internet service

What to do
1. How would you like to have a full-size rocket in your backyard? Or how about a few rockets.? Go to Google Lunar X PRIZE Site to create your own rocket garden like the kind you might see in a museum.

2. At the website, you will find the rockets for your garden. Enter the address where you’d like your Virtual Rocket Garden to appear. Amazed?

3. How do the sizes of the rockets compare to familiar things in your neighborhood?

4. If you have access to the virtual world Second Life, you can also visit the outstanding International Spaceflight Museum. Fly around a large rocket garden. Go inside SpaceShipOne, the winner of the Ansari X PRIZE, and a Mercury space capsule and operate a robotic arm.

What's Going On?
Here is the background on the vehicles found on the website. The Space Shuttle (officially the Space Transportation System) is capable of placing the Orbiter (the airplane-like part of the system) into Low Earth Orbit -- approximately 250 miles above the Earth. The new Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) will send a crew capsule to that same altitude. The new Heavy Lift Vehicle (HLV) will put the lunar lander and a large upper stage into Low Earth Orbit. The CEV will dock with these other parts and the upper stage will accelerate the CEV and Lunar Lander from 5 miles per second (7.8 km/sec) to Earth escape velocity of 7 miles per second (11.2 km/sec.) The CEV and HLV are both still under development and the designs are likely to change over the next few years. You can watch these developments through the X PRIZE web site and other Internet resources.

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