Let's make one thing abundantly clear.

I am not a rocket surgeon.

I know basically nothing about the intricate details of the insides of a modern rocket engine. I'm a physicist. So I'm going to look at this

problem of designing a rocket ship through the lens of physics because that's basically

all I know how to do because that's why I was trained to do. So the approach used in physics,

and physics is not alone in using this kind of approach,

and it's kind of a good approach for a variety of problems that you might encounter in your life.

The physics approach is that when you're faced with a complex problem, like, I don't know,

how does a rocket work? First, you find the simplest description of that problem that hits at the fundamental

properties that grabs at the essence, that the most important pieces, the simplest model

regarding those that incorporates those important pieces.

They use that to gain understanding and insight and intuition, and then you go from there.

Then you actually go out and solve the more complex problem.

And you do it in layers.

So I'm not going to get into the intricate details of powered spaceflight because it gets

really complicated, really fast.

And because of that, I have a heaps, tons, loads of admiration and respect for the

scientists and engineers who do work on these absolutely fascinating systems that we call

rockets.

So with that to the side, and I hope, you know, if there's any

actual rocket scientists in the audience, I hope what I'm about to say doesn't offend you.

I'm intentionally taking an incredibly simplistic approach so we can use rockets to explore

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