Sir Isaac Newton was an important influence to the inventors of aircraft and rockets. He discovered the three laws of motion and published them in Principia Mathematica. To put them in simple terms they are:
First Law: "An object in motion will stay in motion and an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an external force" or "A body persists in a state of uniform motion or of rest unless acted upon by an external force."
Second Law: "Force equals mass times acceleration" or "F = ma."
Third Law: "To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."
OK, this basically means that if I have a rocket, it is just going to stay on the ground unless I apply a force to it (First law). I use the Second law in order to know how much force the rocket needs to use based upon its mass. The less the mass, the less force is necessary to propel it. The Third law says that I need to design the rocket to propel that force in the opposite direction that it needs to go and it will go in the right direction (hopefully up).
Sincerely, Space Cadet
And hopefully you're outside when you do it :)
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