In light of the recent launches I was wondering why rockets launch straight up instead of taking of like a plane.
It seems to take so much fuel to go straight up, and in my mind I can’t see to get my head around why they don’t take off like a plane and go up gradually like that.
Edit – Spelling and grammar
Edit 2 – Thank you to everyone who responded. You have answered a life long question.
In: Physics
There are a lot of answers about air breathing engines and orbital speeds and air resistance on here, all of which are correct. I just wanted to say that space planes do exist and some rockets do launch from high-altitude jets. Space plans just definitely can’t get into orbit as they are much much much too heavy and slow. Also, Launching a rocket from a high altitude plane also does seem like a great solution, but then a plane is basically just doing the job of a first stage booster but can’t get it going very fast or high compared to boosters. Dropping a rocket from a plane is also very technically challenging, as is all of aerospace engineering, but we have a pretty great handle on how to do staged rockets
TLDR; rockets can and do launch from high altitude planes and space planes are a thing. Just a lot less do-able for pretty much any orbit.
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