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
Airplanes have air breathing engines (edit: and wings). This is great, since it means they don’t need to carry their own oxygen, but it’s not as effective at producing thousands of tons of thrust with a smallish device and they can’t run in space.
Rockets don’t use air breathing engines (edit: or wings) because they’re too heavy, not powerful enough, and don’t work in space. As a result, they don’t benefit in any way from being in the atmosphere, and since the atmosphere has air resistance they’d like to get out of it as quickly as possible – especially the lowest, thickest, parts of it.
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