Shadowing Practice: I Build a Giant NASA SLS Water rocket - Learn English Speaking with Video

What are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing,

what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing,

what are you

at first this flight looks like a success

but in reality it was a pure luck

and it almost never happened my name is Natsa

and I will explain you why I had to launch this giant rocket by hand

while it was fully pressurized and how two of my mistakes actually saved the whole project.

All started in April 2026 when I was watching the Artemis mission on its journey around the moon.

I looked at that huge SLS rocket.

wow it's amazing i had to build this rocket

but here's the problem i knew practically nothing about the rockets

so i started at the backyard with my kids and simple water bottle rocket It was fun,

but I knew right away that I wasn't going to stop there.

So, before building the SLS rocket, I started developing and testing the systems I would need.

First, staging mechanism.

I used the same mechanism to develop a booster parachute release system and tested that too

next came the Orion capsule with its parachute deployment system

and a time to release I dropped it from an rc paramotor just to see if everything works okay

and finally i built a fully functional launch aboard system

so step by step i was turning ideas into working mechanisms honestly the 1 to 30 scale

and 3 .4 meter height came from the size of cheapest cola bottle I could get.

The booster size.

The booster is exactly one bottle wide and one and a half centimeter styrofoam around it.

I thought the project would take me one or two months

but it turned into a five month of hard work developing and testing.

I actually choose the hardest way to do it.

Everything on my rocket works 100 % mechanically.

No electronics at all.

Mechanisms are triggered by a drop in air pressure and preloaded springs.

Simple and reliable.

Luckily I've been building RC parachutes for over 25 years so designing all 10 recovery parachutes was the easy part.

Someone asked me, Nace, the rocket is in the air only for a few seconds.

Is it really worth five months of work?

Was it worth it?

What do you think?

Put your comments below.

Of course There were also days when I got stuck and simply couldn't see a solution.

Sometimes it took many attempts before I finally got things working.

I also built a huge wooden launch tower in the same

scale 1 to 30 as the rocket with moving arms to make it look more realistic.

The launch tower also has built -in water tanks

that automatically fill the rocket when I connect the air supply

so when i finally put the complete rocket on my homemade launch tower

the feeling was incredible it looked amazing but i had one more problem i had no calculations for stability or aerodynamics.

I had basically built a visual 1 to 30 scale model

and I had no idea if it would fly straight or start spinning like crazy.

So let's find out.

But you can test monster like this in a backyard, right?

I needed safe airspace, a large open area with no trees or other obstacles.

I managed to arrange the lunch after the official program of a rocketry competition in Krško.

A big thank you to the organizers.

The plan was simple.

At home, I practiced setting up almost the whole system in about an hour and a half.

So, I added another hour as a safety margin.

We arrived at the lunch site four hours before the planned lunch, but even that wasn't enough.

I had a checklist for every step of the preparation at first I followed it carefully

but as I got behind schedule I started relying on my memory and

that was a big mistake I mean what kind of idiot

stops using a checklist in the final minutes after working on a project for five months

I had some trouble stacking the Orion capsule

and the launch abort system on the second stage so I had to repeat it several times.

People were already waiting for the launch so I was under a lot of pressure.

With some difficulty I finally secured the second stage to the main body

pressurized it with air and removed the safety pins and then i heard a strange sound from inside

like the sound of a parachute spring winger list here's the second stage parachute it was trapped between stages

so it couldn't get out but because i was

so stressed i simply ignored the problem

when i thought everything is ready i switched on the cameras well almost all of them

and my youngest son was in charge of pulling the launch trigger

but when he pulled it nothing happened the trigger was overloaded

because of the air pressure okay it's me again i had never tested the rocket trigger under the real pressure

Another mistake.

I ran to the launch pad and checked the system.

Everything looked ok, but then I heard another sound.

The air was leaking somewhere from the rocket.

I can't wait any longer.

If I wait, there won't be any launch today.

I crouched down to the trigger and pulled it as hard as I could.

The rocket launched and sprayed me with lots of water.

When I looked up, I saw that the two boosters had not separated.

They were falling down together with the core stage.

And the core parachute opened only about 2 meters above the ground.

The other sections separated normally and opened their parachutes.

20 seconds later it was all over.

My son brought the booster and the safety pin back to me safety pin, safety pin.

I immediately realized what had happened.

I had forgotten to remove the booster safety pin before launch.

It was clearly written on the checklist.

The checklist I had stopped using.

I had also forgotten to pressurize the booster parachute ejectors.

So even if the boosters had separated their parachutes would not have opened

when i checked the footage at home i noticed something else the second stage parachute opened immediately after separation

that was the spring sound i had heard earlier and

because of that the second stage didn't reach the higher altitude

but because the parachute opened so early the onboard camera captured this beautiful shot.

I would say, another lucky accident.

oh gosh i had so many lucky accidents already so the final results the core stage survived

100

A little scratched but completely useful.

101

The boosters were undamaged.

102

I also found the air leak I had heard before launch.

103

It was an o -ring inside the left booster.

104

The second stage survived, the Orion capsule survived and the launch abort system is in a perfect condition.

105

So for the next flight, first I will improve the launch trigger second i will have someone next to me with the checklist

106

and someone else will be responsible for the cameras subscribe for the next flight

107

and if you want to support my channel

108

and future project you can do so on my ko -fi page

109

and a very very special thank you to my wife

110

for supporting me throughout this project and to everyone who helped along the way thank you so much

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “I Build a Giant NASA SLS Water rocket”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: rocket, launch, parachute, booster, stage. This video has 110 sentences and 1386 words to shadow. The speech runs for 11:53. The speaker talks at a steady 117 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
rocket noun	/ˈɹɑk.ɪt/	A cylindrical projectile that can be fired to a great height through combustion, (specifically) a type of firework of this form, typically exploding with light…
parachute noun	/ˈpæɹəʃut/	A device, generally constructed from fabric, that is designed to employ air resistance to control the fall of an object or person, causing them to float…
booster noun	/ˈbustɚ/	Something that boosts.
trigger noun	/ˈtɹɪɡɚ/	A finger-operated lever used to fire a gun.
mechanism noun	/ˈmɛk.ə.nɪ.zəm/	Any mechanical means for the conversion or control of motion, or the transmission or control of power.
capsule noun	/ˈkæps(ə)l/	A membranous envelope.
leak noun	/liːk/	A crack, crevice, fissure, or hole which admits water or other fluid, or lets it escape.
backyard noun	/bækˈjɑːd/	A yard to the rear of a house or similar residence.
ignore verb	/ɪɡˈnɔː/	To deliberately not listen or pay attention to.
carefully adverb	/ˈkɛɹf(ə)li/	With care; attentively, circumspectly.
capture verb	/ˈkæp.(t)ʃɚ/	To take control of; to seize by force or stratagem.
arrive verb	/əˈɹaɪv/	To reach; to get to a certain place.
connect verb	/kəˈnɛkt/	To join (to another object): to attach, or to be intended to attach or capable of attaching, to another object.
spin verb	/spɪn/	To rotate, revolve, gyrate (usually quickly); to partially or completely rotate to face another direction.
difficulty noun	/ˈdɪfɪkəlti/	The state of being difficult, or hard to do.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
fall down verb	/fɔl ˈdaʊn/	To fall to the ground. To collapse.
find out verb		To discover, as by asking or investigating.
get behind verb		To come to believe or support something.
get out verb		To leave or escape.
help along verb		To euthanize.
look up verb	/ˌlʊk ˈʌp/	To have better prospects.
set up verb	/ˌsɛt ˈʌp/	To make ready for use.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

What do you think?
I can't wait any longer.
If I wait, there won't be any launch today.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	If I wait, there won't be
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	are triggered · was trapped · was overloaded

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 8 contractions and reduced forms, such as couldn't, wasn't, can't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: parachute /ˈpæɹəʃut/, capture /ˈkæp.(t)ʃɚ/, preparation /ˌpɹɛpəˈɹeɪʃ(ə)n/, separation /ˌsɛp.əˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, gosh /ɡɑːʃ/
Long words — get the stress right: mechanism /ˈmɛk.ə.nɪ.zəm/, difficulty /ˈdɪfɪkəlti/, preparation /ˌpɹɛpəˈɹeɪʃ(ə)n/, stability /stəˈbɪlɪti/, electronics /ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɑ.nɪks/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like rocket, parachute, booster.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

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