I seen photographs of the Spruce Goose and i was wondering how well would a wooden rocket work out?

Question

I know a wooden airplane and a wooden rocket wouldn't work the same, but do you think it would work at all?

Lol my young nephew thinks it would work because wood floats.

Answer 1

It wouldn't work out very well because it would burn up. if not from the rocket engines needed to escape the atmosphere, them from the heat of reentry.  However, you would be dead before the reentry because you wouldn't be able to seal it well enough to hold in the air while the ship was in a vacuum.

Answer 2

About the same as the spruce goose.

Answer 3

Completely made of wood would not work, even if you only make the structure of wood (The spruce goose did also not have wooden engines), the heating and forces on the rocket will cause trouble. A friend did calculations for a supersonic rocket fin once and calculated that the front edge of the fin would need to be made of metal in any case.

Finally, many other fiber composites known today are far better as wood, but still many parts of a small rocket could be made of wood.

It was for a long time not uncommon to use cork panels as insulation for rockets - it was cheap and better as many artificial materials.