Why are space rockets shot straight up? Wouldn’t it be easier to make a spacecraft that ascends like regular aircraft until it’s out of the atmosphere?
In: Technology
It takes a *ton* of energy to build up momentum to exit the atmosphere, be it entering orbit or flying outward towards distant stars and planets. That energy comes from burning fuel up. And you have a limited amount of fuel. So you want to maximize the energy spent for the *vertical* (up-down) climb. Any energy you spend to move laterally (side-to-side) is energy that you could have spent … for that upward climb. So it’s really inefficient.
Eventually rockets do start to shift towards lateral movement as they burn up fuel, become lighter, and need to start entering an orbit trajectory to deliver their cargo/satellites. But if they started doing that directly on the ground they’d never get up there to begin with.
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