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
The difference is that planes use air to rest on, and rockets don’t. Why? Iamgine that instead of escaping the atmosphere you try to exit a sea. Think of a plane as a submarine. With little propulsion you don’t rest on the seabed and instead fly through the sea. Think of a rocket as, well, a rocket. A rocket that tries to jump out of the sea. Now using the lift of the water doesnt help much, as the angle required to do so is near horizontal, while you want to go straight out. That’s kind of how it works for airplanes and rockets aswell, but now instead of water in a sea, they deal with the air in the atmosphere.
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