Unit 3: Our World—Within and Beyond

9 Travelling to Space

Expected Learning Outcomes NCF Competencies Covered: C-1.1

Knowledge to be gained : • Space •Travelling in space •Humans on

the Moon • First Indians into space
A tude to be inculcated : • To think beyond our planet Earth!

SPACE
The Earth is surrounded by a thick blanket of air. Outside this
blanket of air is space. Space means empty or nothingness. When
we throw things up in the air, the Earth pulls it back down. The
Earth’s pull is very strong. To get out of this pull and to go into
Indian space rocket
space, we need a special machine called the space rocket.

TRAVELLING IN SPACE Do Space is

It is wonderful to travel in space. As the space rocket rises swiftly, You ?

completely
Know yousilent. Once
escape the
the air continually gets thinner and eventually, we escape the pull
Earth’s blanket
of the Earth. When you are in space, there is no air there. The lack of of air and go into
the Earth's pull makes us weightless, so we start floating in space. space, you won’t
be able to hear
Rocket Makes Us to Travel into Space anything.

Spacecraft People who are trained to go into space are called

attached to
a rocket astronauts. Astronauts need rockets to travel into space.
Space rockets work just like firework rockets. Fuel burns
inside the rocket making hot gases that rush out from
below and push the rocket forward with a huge force.
We send people and things to space by attaching a vehicle
An astronaut
floating in space to the space rocket. Upon reaching space, the space rocket
gets burned and the vehicles get detached from the
rocket. The vehicle carrying people and things continues
to float in space. This vehicle is used for travelling in
space. It is called a spaceship or a spacecraft.

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 Space rockets carry spacecrafts into space. Once we get into space, we can notice other
objects like our Earth floating in space. These objects are called celestial objects.
Yuri Gagarin of Russia was the first human being to go into space.
First Traveller into Space
The first traveller to go into space was a dog named Laika. ‘Laika’ means ‘barker’ in
Russia. It went up in a Russian spaceship called Sputnik-2 in November 1957. It died
while in space, but it was proved that animals could go into space.
Humans in the Space
As mentioned earlier, the first man to go into space was Yuri Gagarin, a Russian
astronaut. He encircled the Earth in 1961. Yuri Gagarin’s spaceship was called
Vostok-1. Russia was also the first country to launch the world’s first man-made
(artificial) satellite Sputnik-1 into space in October 1957. A satellite is anything in
space that circles around something else. The Moon is a natural satellite of the Earth.

HUMANS ON THE MOON

Humans landed on the Moon for the first time
in a spacecraft called Apollo 11. This was in
1969. The first man who stepped on the
surface of the Moon was Neil Armstrong. The
first words he said on landing on the Moon
were, “That’s one small step for man, but a giant Edwin Aldrin on the Moon
leap for mankind.” (as photographed by Neil Armstrong)

Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins were the other two people who travelled in the
spacecraft with Neil Armstrong.

LIFE ON THE MOON

The Moon looks very beautiful from Earth. There is no air and water on the Moon. As
you know, plants and animals need both air and water
to survive. So, there is no life on the Moon.
The Moon is covered with huge potholes called
craters. Just like the Earth, the Moon also has a pull
of its own. The pull of the Moon is six times weaker
than that of the Earth. So, if you land on the surface of
the Moon, you would feel lighter than you feel on the
Earth. Your weight on the Moon is one-sixth of your
weight on Earth. If a person weighs 60 kg on the
Craters on the surface of the Moon Earth, he would weigh only 10 kg on the Moon!
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 FIRST INDIANS INTO SPACE
The first Indian to go into space was Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma. He went in a
Russian spacecraft named SOYUZ T-11 in 1984.
Kalpana Chawla was the first woman of Indian origin to go into space. She went to
space for the first time in 1997 in the space shuttle Columbia. Unfortunately, during
her second tour into space, she died on 1 February 2003, when her space shuttle
disintegrated while reaching Earth on the return journey.
Sunita Williams was the second woman of Indian origin to go into space.

Rakesh Sharma Kalpana Chawla Sunita Williams

CHECK YOURSELF
Tick (3) the correct option:
1. Earth is surrounded by a blanket of:
(a) air (b) water (c) dust
2. Who was the first traveller that went into space?
(a) Yuri Gagarin (b) Laika (c) Edwin Aldrin
3. The first human to go into space was:
(a) Yuri Gagarin (b) Rakesh Sharma (c) Neil Armstrong
4. The first man who stepped on the Moon was:
(a) Edwin Aldrin (b) Michael Collins (c) Neil Armstrong

NEW WORDS
Astronaut : A space traveller
Spacecra : A vehicle that travels in space

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 SUMMARY
v Space means empty or nothingness. There is no air in space.
v Astronauts need rockets to travel into space.
v Astronauts use a vehicle called spacecraft to travel in space.
v Any object in space that circles around something else in space is called satellite.
v The Moon is a natural satellite of the Earth.
v The potholes on the surface of the Moon are called craters.
v There is no air and water on the Moon.
v The first Indian to go into outer space was Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma.

Exercise
A. Name each of the following:
1. Special machine used to go into space. _______________
2. The first animal to go into space. _______________
3. The first Indian man to go into space. _______________
4. The first woman of Indian origin to go into space. _______________
B. Fill in the blanks:
1. _____________ is a place outside the blanket of air surrounding the Earth.
2. _____________ was the first human to go into space.
3. The _____________ is a natural satellite of the Earth.
4. The Moon is covered with huge potholes called _____________.
C. Answer the following questions in brief:
1. What is a spacecraft?
2. Why is there no life on the Moon?
3. If your weight is 30 kg, how much would you weigh on the Moon?
D. Answer the following questions in detail:
1. Why do astronauts need space rockets to go into space?
2. How does a space rocket work?
3. What is a satellite?
4. How is the pull of the Moon different from that of the Earth? How would you
feel if you went to the Moon?
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 Be a Young Information, Media & Technology Literacy
Researcher
Do you know that India has a special organisation dedicated to space? It’s called the
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). ISRO is trying to send Indian
astronauts into space. Gaganyaan is a science mission aimed at sending Indian
astronauts to space, using an Indian rocket.
Surf the internet and collect more information about the Gaganyaan project. Prepare
a report on your findings and show it to your teacher.

Let Us Visit
Along with your teacher and classmates,
plan a visit to a planetarium. A
planetarium is a theatre built mainly
for presenting educational and
entertainment shows about outer space
and the night sky. India has about 30
planetariums. If there is any in or near the
place where you live, visit it.

Subject Link : English

Test your spelling skills!
Given below are the jumbled names of some words mentioned in this chapter.
Rearrange them.

1. APSCE _______________

2. ROKTCE _______________

3. NOMO _______________

4. ETISATLLE _______________

5. NAORTUAST _______________

FOOTNOTE
® Teacher should let the children know that even astronomers are not sure where the Moon came from. It may have
broken off from the Earth, or it may have been ‘captured’ by the pull of the Earth while moving away in the space.

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