Most rockets are designed to jettison off before breaking the Earth's atmosphere. There are parts that comprise the secondary push, while in orbit, that burn up when falling back towards home....
I would have to say that it's Russia's Sputnik 1. This scared the Americans because Russia now had the ability to launch a nuclear ICBM and they were losing the space race.
Friction and magnetic influences will be external forces that can slow a spaceship down. If we want a controlled slowing down of a ship, we would use reverse thrust. Space is not a perfect vacuum. It...