Why do we have to fly rockets straight up and out of the atmosphere? Why can’t we fly a ship like a plane and just go higher and higher and higher, then rocket booster out past the exosphere. I know the air is thin way up there, so at the highest, tilt upwards and rocket boost
In: Engineering
The term for this is air launch to orbit. Its only slightly more efficient (space is surprisingly close to the ground), and leads to a large increase in mechanical complexity.
It does make a little bit of sense for very small payloads that don’t really need to make it to orbit.
Like rockets on a fundamental level are pretty simple things, and we still mess them up every now and then.
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