ScienceThe BestieBeginner
How to Leave the Planet, a free science course on Tomo

How to Leave the Planet

Like Duolingo, but for How to Leave the Planet. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.

For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.

A short one: 8 levels across 2 sections, about 16 minutes end to end, roughly 3 days at five minutes a day. It moves through The Great Escape and Living in the Void. It starts from scratch.

8 bite-size levelsAbout 5 minutes each

Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android

Sputnik the Squirrel, the guide who teaches the How to Leave the Planet course
How to Leave the Planet
with Sputnik the Squirrel
8
Levels
2
Sections
5
Min/day
What you'll learn

Key ideas in How to Leave the Planet

  • Rockets move by ejecting high-speed exhaust mass in the opposite direction
  • Escape velocity is the minimum speed needed to leave Earth's gravitational pull
  • Air acts as resistance (drag) rather than a necessary medium for propulsion
  • The vast majority of a rocket's mass is propellant
  • The 'push' comes from the internal reaction of throwing fuel out the back
  • Adding more fuel adds more weight, which requires even more fuel to lift
  • How rockets generate thrust without needing air to push against
  • The relationship between fuel weight and reaching escape velocity
  • Carrying empty metal tanks wastes energy
  • Earth's atmosphere is densest at sea level
  • Rockets move by ejecting high-speed exhaust mass
  • Dropping weight allows the remaining rocket to accelerate faster
  • Air resistance creates massive heat and physical pressure at high speeds
  • The sequence and logic of the staging process
  • Clearing the 'thick' air is the first major hurdle
  • Gravity at the ISS altitude is still about 90% as strong as on Earth
Why not just Google it

You've tried the other tabs

Wikipedia

Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.

YouTube

You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.

ChatGPT

One answer, then back to scrolling.

Online courses

Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.

Tomo gives How to Leave the Planet the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.

Try a question

Here's what playing it feels like

A real question from this course. Take your best guess.

The Physics of the Push

What do we call the minimum speed required to completely break away from Earth's gravitational pull?

Get it right to open this lesson and 7 more in the app.

Course map

Where How to Leave the Planet takes you

Ever wondered why rockets are so big or how satellites stay up without engines? Master the core physics of escaping Earth and surviving the silent void of space.

  1. 1

    The Great Escape

    • Breaking Gravity's Grip
    • The Art of Falling Forever
  2. 2

    Living in the Void

    • Surviving the Silent Neighborhood

2 sections · 3 units · 8 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.

How it's taught

You pick the voice

This course
The Bestie

How to Leave the Planet is taught in the The Bestie style: your friend who just gets it. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.

Start free

Start How to Leave the Planet today.

Download Tomo, search How to Leave the Planet, and play your first lesson in under a minute.