A rocket consists essentially of an engine plus fuel - it is the job of the engine to burn

the fuel and throw the products out of the end of the rocket. The operation of a rocket
is an excellent example of the Law of Conservation of Momentum, as shown below:
Before the Engine
Fires:
Let's take our system as
"rocket + fuel". For
simplicity, suppose that the
rocket is at rest,
somewhere in space,
where no outside forces
will exert impulses on our
system. Therefore, "rocket
plus fuel" is an isolated
system and the Law of
Conservation of
Momentum applies. Since
both the rocket and the fuel
are at rest, their individual
momenta are zero, and so
the total momentum of the
system is zero.

After the Engine

Fires:
When the rocket's engine
fires, it pushes fuel out of
the end of the rocket.
Suddenly, part of the fuel
has momentum, mv,
toward the left as shown in
the diagram.
Since the total momentum
of the system was zero
before the rocket fired, it
must still be zero. This
means that the rocket must
have an equal momentum
to the right:

procket = -pfuel
The negative sign means
that the two momentum
vectors are in opposite
directions (and therefore
cancel). Even though the
momentum of the rocket
and the momentum of the
fuel are the same size, their
velocities are not the same
size. Since the fuel has a
small mass, it gets a larger
velocity. Since the rocket
has a large mass, it gets a
smaller velocity.

rocket rocket

= -mfuelVfuel

Jet Engine

1. Air is taken in from the front and is compressed by the

compressor.
2. Fuel is injected and burnt with the compressed air in the
combustion chamber.
3. The hot gas is forced through the engine to turn the turbine
blade, which turns the compressor.
4. High-speed hot gases are ejected from the back with high
momentum.
5. This produces an equal and opposite momentum to push the
jet plane forward.

Rocket

1. Mixture of hydrogen and oxygen fuels burn in the combustion

chamber.
2. Hot gases are expelled through the exhausts at very high
speed .
3. The high-speed hot gas produce a high momentum backwards.
4. By conservation of momentum, an equal and opposite
momentum is produced and acted on the rocket, pushing the
rocket upwards.