Why do rockets launch in an arc, and not just go straight up?
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If you want to learn more of this thing while haveing fun play KSP i learned a lot about rocket science from there.
Now since planet (Earth) is a globe and we know that for certain, to achieve ,,steadiness,, in space we have to travel x km/s in an orbital direction. And to achieve orbit we need to be fast enough to break gravity from pulling us back. So how we do it, its simple. Imagine having one line from Earth’s core to you when you go straight up you make it go up and again falling down, but if you go with curve / you make it spin around the globe makeing one big ring around the planet achieveing orbit.
And once we get in orbit we have same speed forever, to move that ring back and land on Earth we just go in opposite direction, so instead of extending the ring further by going in same direction we are shrinking it. Also in orbit its very cheap to change path and go to Moon for example it saves billions on fuel and mass of craft.
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