Modern spacecraft are propelled from behind. A very large amount of explosives is placed under a spacecraft and set off in a controlled detonation so that it blasts the spacecraft into the heavens but short of kingdom come. Liquid fuel is most often hydrogen. In early experiments, the fuel used was gasoline, however, this is not much of a series on history. Controlled detonation is the key just as it is in the internal combustion engine.

These engines are a form of reactive drive. A chemical reaction within the reaction chamber, combining hydrogen and oxygen, liberates energy in the form of both heat and pressure. Directing this heated, pressurized gas backwards produces an equal thrust forwards. Not all of the pressure of the gas is produced by the heating of the newly formed water vapor, but most of it is. Since the thrust is generated in the opposite direction of the exhaust jets, you can steer the spacecraft by directing the gas jets. All of this is very basic physics.

Space does not contain any true solids. Being honest with us, space does not pretend that it contains solids. Everything that appears to be solid is actually made up of small particles that hold roughly into a shape by associating with nearby particles. The process of going directly from a solid to a gas is called effervescence and this is what gives supposedly solid objects their scent. All of the universe is slowly evaporating as the particles drift out of the objects that we think of as solid.

Complicating this, the double slit experiment has shown that the electron, proton and neutron objects in space are no more solid than the photons by which we see them. However, this does not really get us anywhere. What you have to remember is that your spacecraft is made up of a collection of particles which pretend to form a single, solid structure. Why would that matter?

Remember that you are pushing your spacecraft with those jets? If you try to push a collection of marbles across a table, they will try to go all over the place. The problem with pushers is that they absorb some of the energy used to move them because they are deformed by pushing them. They are not as fluid as the handful of marbles, but the amount of energy consumed by the spacecraft being deformed produces an illusion called inertia. Your spacecraft is not going to move until all of its parts are put into motion in the same direction at the same time

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