Why do space rockets not take off like planes (i.e. straight up vs sideways and up)?
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Good answers already, here are a couple additional comments.
Planes travel at about 500 mph. Rockets travel at 17,000 mph. That’s quite a difference. The atmosphere provides drag, and it gets worse (i.e. way more drag) the faster you go.
The atmosphere gets thinner (less dense) as your rise in height. You see this if you go up on a mountain, you can actually feel dizzy due to the less dense atmosphere (and lower oxygen density). If you go up one mile, it’s noticeable. Go up 10 miles, and you will die.
So, from the rocket’s point of view, you want to get vertical as fast as you can, to get out of the atmosphere, so that is what they do. straight up initially.
Fun fact, the rocket (for low earth orbit) is only going up about 300 miles. The ISS is only 250 miles above earth’s surface. But, they have to travel around 17,000 mph horizontally. So rockets go straight up initially (to get out of the thick part of the atmosphere) and then roll and start going horizontally very quickly (like, one minute into the launch or so).
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