I specifically said I didn't want to argue, because you seem to be very fixed in your opinion, and very likely you'll not agree with anything I could say. The point I was trying to establish is, what exactly is the basis of your understanding of why rockets don't work in space.
Free expansion is why they can't work in space. Free expansion is why they couldn't get too far up into the atmosphere, never mind what you believe space to be.
We've established that the central issue is the view that there is nothing for the rocket to push against. The laws of physics say that you don't need anything to push against.
If you disagree with the following, then just briefly say why and we leave it at that, we don't need to drag this out into a protracted argument that ultimately ends in insults.
The laws of physics aren't laws when dealing with this. It's the laws of lies or guesswork.
The fact that a person can't envisage himself being in a vacuum and unable to distinguish it from being at sea level doing his stuff; it's bound to sway a person towards the bogus physics laws.
If you do not have any resistive force to your energy, then you simply do not move, whether that's a person or a rocket.
Here's an experiment for you to try.
Tie a strong box from a rafter and you and a friend get inside of it and shut the lid.
Let's call the box the inside of your rocket chamber and you and your friend are the fuel mix.
You are sat above your friend. He can smell your arse and the crease of your ball sack through your khaki shorts but this is irrelevant, as it's just an occupational hazard.
Ok so you tell him to push down onto the bottom of the box.
He does this and realises that to break it he has to lever off of your arse whilst you have to lever your shoulders and head against the top of the box lid.
Let's assume that your box lid is solid and won't break.
Now your friend manages to break through his lid due to him squashing you. All you are doing is being jammed against your lid until he breaks his lid and falls out under the pressure he and you used as force.
He shoots out and hits the deck. Where are you?
You don't hit the ceiling do you? you drop out behind him like a limp dick because you both expended your energy pushing each otehr to break his lid and now you are left in the box for a sec after your friend smashes his face off the floor. Then you follow like a newly hatched chick falling from a nest onto your mate.
Imagine a cube shaped sealed metal box floating in the vacuum of space 1m x 1m x 1m and we have pressurized the box with air to 10 kg per square meter
The area of each of the sides of the cube is 1 square meter so there is 10 kg pressing from the inside on each side of the cube. Now we cut a 0.1 square meter hole in the bottom of the cube, so the bottom now has only 9kg pressing on it, but the top still has 10kg so there is 1kg force difference between the top and bottom, pushing the box upwards. And the box moves up. It doesn't need to push against anything.
I'll leave the equations for another day.
You lost your force when you cut the cube open. You lost it to free expansion.
Try and make things easier for yourself or you will get frustrated.