In This IS Rocket Science, players look to become the most prolific space explorer by landing on or orbiting planets. All game cards serve a dual purpose, acting as both the planets for scoring and the rocket fuel used to reach the planets. On a turn players will draft cards from a central tableau or combine cards from their hands to reach exact target rocket fuel numbers to either land on or orbit a planet in the tableau. To score a planet, a player will discard cards from their hand and multiple the rocket fuel values together to hit the aforementioned target number. Some cards can also be discarded in order to add or subtract from the fuel value.