1. Rats and dogs rode in rockets before humans did. Before sending people into space, scientists sent animals like fruit flies, mice, dogs, and monkeys to make sure rocket travel was safe. A dog named Laika became the first animal to orbit the Earth in 1957!

2. They work like blowing up a balloon and letting it go. Rockets move using Isaac Newton's Third Law of Motion: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." When hot gas blasts out the bottom of the engine (action), it pushes the rocket high up into the sky (reaction)!

3. Rockets carry their own oxygen into space. Fire needs oxygen to burn, but there is no air floating around in outer space! Because of this, space rockets must carry huge tanks of liquid oxygen alongside their fuel tanks so their engines can keep burning out in space.

4. They have to reach 17,500 mph to stay in space. To break free from Earth's gravity and stay in orbit, a rocket has to reach a mind-boggling speed called escape velocity—which is about 17,500 miles per hour (or 25 times faster than the speed of sound)!

5. The Saturn V rocket was taller than the Statue of Liberty. The giant Saturn V rocket that carried Apollo astronauts to the Moon stood over 363 feet tall and weighed as much as 400 large elephants when fully filled with fuel.

6. Modern rockets can land themselves backwards. In the past, rockets were used once and then dropped into the ocean as trash. Today, reusable rockets like SpaceX's Falcon 9 can fly back down from space, flip around, and land straight up on tiny pads so they can be used again!

7. Most of a rocket is just a giant fuel tank. Over 80% to 90% of a rocket's total weight is pure rocket fuel! The actual room where astronauts sit or satellite cargo is stored (called the payload) is just a tiny nose cone right at the very top.