Why can’t airplanes fly into space?
In: Engineering
Depending on the plane in question, that would be doable – there have been a few rocket planes invented. *However,* most modern and historical planes use the air itself for both lift and propulsion. With no air, there is nothing for the propellers / jet engines to use to invoke Newton’s 3rd law of equal and opposite reactions (push something in one direction and you get pushed in the other) for thrust, and neither is there any air going over the wings to generate lift. Similarly, if there is no air going over the various control surfaces (ailerons on the wings, or elevators and rudder in the tail), the plane has no way of controlling which direction it moves – sticking your hand out of car window and feeling it be pushed around by the wind suddenly doesn’t work if there is no air to do the pushing
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