Why is it a rocket🚀 is used to go straight up into outer space and not just use an airplane ✈️ ? I’m sure there is a good reason but it seems that the gradual assent would be preferred over the straight up approach.
In: Engineering
Airplanes, by definition, require air to work. They generate lift from the motion of air passing over their wings. Propellers and jet engines also need air to generate forward thrust, for more or less the same reason.
There is no air in space. An airplane could get you quite high, but it cannot take you into space any more than a submarine can travel above the surface of the ocean.
It’s not actually that hard to get to the edge of space. The space program uses rockets not so much for the going-up part, but because to get into orbit (or to leave the Earth entirely) you need to go sideways really really fast.
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