How are spaceships launched into space?
78972
Very large rockets produce enough thrust to overcome the Earth's gravity. Eventually, they go so high up, that even with the rockets turned off, the Earth's gravity no longer pulls it back down.  Everytime you jump up, you're essentially 'leaving' the Earth's gravity, so think of it as 'jumping' with so much force that you keep going right into space.  Sorry for the watered-down explanation. You could probably get a more scientific responce by typing 'rocket propulsion' into a search engine.
126845
Space craft [usually] rely on rockets in space.  Rockets burn some fuel with some Oxidizer to produce lots of hot expanding gasses which are pushed out of the nozzle of the rocket.  When these gasses are pushed out the back of the rocket, they cause a change in momentum which accelerates the rocket forward.\n\nNewton’s 3rd law states, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.\nSo if the action is that the rocket exhaust is pushed out the back of the space craft, then the equal and opposite reaction would be for the space craft to be pushed forward.\n\nThe law of conservation of momentum tells us that momentum is always conserved.  If a spacecraft is moving with some initial velocity (could be zero) that space craft has some momentum associated with it.  At any point in time later on, the momentum of all the parts to that space craft needs to equal up to that original value.  So if part of the craft (the burning fuel) is pushed out one direction, in order to conserve momentum, the other part of the craft needs to be pushed the other direction [otherwise it is breaking the law].\n\nIt is somewhat of a difficult concept to understand, I hoped I explained it well.\n\nRockets do not just work in space.  Obviously you can still use a rocket down here on Earth and it works for the same reasons it work in space.  The principle of how the rocket works is not just exclusive to rockets.  For example, if you sat on one of those chairs with wheels holding a heavy bag of sand, then you pushed/threw the bag away from you, you and the chair would start to move in the other direction.
78721
NO it doesn't - if you're referring only to space - at zero gravity that is! \n\nThe initial launching rocket boosters are abandoned once you enter space, and the fuel is filled only to the suffice the requirement of the rocket launch - enough to push it into space for the rocket to thereon move autonomously.
419265
Outerspace begins when the thermosphere ends. There is no definite beginning to outer space, the atmosphere just blends into outer space about 550km above the Earth.\n\nHope this helps
1125056
Canadian researchers are doing this actually. The rocket is lifted up as high as the balloon will go and then it is launched at a slightly upward angle. It saves a great deal of fuel and money and they maintain that Human manned rockets can be launched this way.
981946
It depends on how fast your spaceship can travel and the flight path that you use. The distance to travel 385,000 km \n\nThe first man made object that got to the moon was the Russian Luna 2. It impacted with the Moon and scattered Russian pennants on the Lunar surface. The flight duration was 33.5 hours\n\nThe Apollo missions were a bit slower because the spacecraft first had to reconfigure in earth orbit and then had to brake as they approached the moon. Flight duration to the moon just over 60 hours.\n\nAt this stage there are no spaceships, on earth, capable of getting a human to the moon. So if you start tomorrow with a huge budget you should get there in four or five years.
147635
Sound does not travel in space. \n\nSound is created when a vibrating object (your vocal cords, a guitar string, etc.) causes the air around it to vibrate. This vibration continues to expand outwards through the air (or water if you happen to be under water) until it reaches your ear drum, which in turn vibrates. Your brain interprets these vibrations as sound.\n\nSound does not travel in space because space is a vacuum. There is nothing to vibrate. So, when the vibrations (sound) reaches the upper levels of our atmosphere, it stops.\n\nSound does travel in the space shuttle because the space shuttle is pressurized and contains air that the astronauts breath. The air provides the medium to transfer the vibrations from the source object to the astronaut's ears.
414941
They dont "break through" gravity - there is no point it actually 'starts'.\n\nGravity is simply a negative force acting upon the aircraft ... in simple terms their weight.\n\nThe 'lift' from their wings (due to their shape and speed) counteracts the weight of the aircraft allowing it to leave the ground when enough has been generated.
958904
Building an engine that can get close to the speed of light is much easier, we basically know how to do it now, a low thruse engine that can run for long periods of time in space will just keep accelerating since there is no resistance. NASA is now developing such engines - ion engines.\n\nConversly we don't really have any good ideas on how to build an engine to bend space, or if it is even possible.
682353
It works like this...\n\nA satellite is launched into space at a very specific angle.  It is carried to a specific height and gravity keeps it where they want it the same way it keeps the moon in check.  The object is in a continuous state of free fall but it doesn't fall from the sky (OK, when they get the math wrong some do fall from the sky.) because of it's inertial mass.  The inertial mass (newtons 2nd law) causes the satellite to move away from the earth and out into space... the gravity of the earth keeps pulling it down so that it can't get away.   \n\nLemme see if I can clarify.  draw a circle, better yet, get an orange, apple, round object.  The satellite is a few hundred miles above the earth... now get a pencil, pen, ruler, whatever.  put the orange on a desk and hold the pencil over top of the orange earth.  make sure it is pointing side to side and not straight up above our earth.  This is the path of the satellite when there is no gravity, it wants to go in a straight line away from the planet... You can see that it would get further away from the surface the more it moves away from the center.\n___\n.O\n\nEarth's gravity pulls it back toward the earth, counteracting the satellites natural motion, and when all the math is figured out you can keep it at an exact height above the earth and if your really good you can make it geosynchronous (always over the same spot)
249036
Employ the use of friction. As the ship moves forward, it collides with an unspeakably large number of air and water molecules. You can think of these as many collisions where momentum is conserved. As the air and water molecules absorb the ship's momentum, the ship will slow down.\n\nBut in the case of a spaceship, there are no water or air molecules in space. Instead, you should use reverse thrusters to slow down the ship. As the products of the chemical reactions of the thrusters are pushed forward, because of the conservation of momentum, the ship is pushed back, effectively slowing down your spaceship.
272490
Structures in space are built the old-fashioned way with cranes, hand tools, portable electric tools, etc.  What you're talking about is so expensive and so far in the future it's only in people's dreams right now, like landing on the moon was a hundred years ago.
568565
Using a space gun for  manned space flights would not be.at all, practical.  While a space gun could launch items into orbit, the acceleration would be far more than any human could survive.  A gun could, theoretically, be constructed that would accelerate it's payload slow enough that a human could ride it but that gun would have to be far too long to be practical.\n\nThe earth is a rotating sphere.  It's surface velocity is greatest at the equator.  Since the Earth is about 24,000 miles in circumference and that 24,000 miles is traveled every 24 hours the actual speed at the equator is about 1,000 miles per hour.  The Earth also rotates toward the east.  That means that the location of the gun and the direction it is firing gives the projectile a 1,000 mph head start.  That is, the projectile is already traveling at 1,000 mph before the gun is fired.\n\nPlease note where the USA chose to launch all of it's manned missions from.  Cape Canaveral is well south in the United States.  The eastern coast of Texas, near Brownsville might have been even better but something (perhaps political) prevented it.
238439
Yeah, it's not a jet where air is pushed out.  It is a chemical reaction where chemicals are burned and thrust out the back of the ship.  It's like if you were floating as still as possible in zero G and blew air out hard.  you would move in the opposite direction.  If you held a little bottle of any gas under pressure and opened it, you would move.  Same basic principle. It's not pushing against the surrounding air, it's just pushing away from you regardless of whether it's a vacuum or in air.\n\nIn fact, in air you would get less of a push than you would in a vacuum.
701384
The present momentum of the spaceship is \np1 = 7600 * 125 = 950000 kgm/s.\nLet us say the momentum of the gas expelled is p2. Then\np2 / p1 = tan 30.\nHence, p2 = p1 tan 30 = 548482 kgm/s.\nThe mass of the gas expelled = p2 / v = 171.4 kg.\nThis is only an approximation because the mass of the space ship is changing during the expulsion of the gas. Also the gas is expelled perpendicular to the motion of the ship at all times, which will keep the tangential velocity constant. To take these into account, you should also know the mass rate at which the gas is being ejected. Since this is not given - and also since the mass of the gas is negligible as compared to the mass of the rocket, I suppose the approximation is justified.
1006732
As a previous poster correctly said, they have to launch at just the right time depending on where they are going.  For the upcoming launch, the space shuttle is going to the International Space Station.   The ISS orbits Earth (as all satellites do) so they have to launch the shuttle at the right time so that it's near the ISS when it (the shuttle) reaches orbit.  The ISS orbits Earth about once every 90 minutes, and the part of Earth it passes over keeps changing as Earth rotates, thus leading to a narrow launch window for the shuttle.\n\nBy the way, when the shuttle is orbitting Earth (this goes for the ISS, too) it doesn't zoom around in space they way they do in Star Wars or anything.  In fact, usually it doesn't have any rockets firing at all, it just orbits Earth, with the only force on it being the force of Earth's gravity.  The shuttle does have little rockets on it to make small changes in its trajectory, and to allow it to dock smoothly with the ISS.  My point is, if the shuttle were on the other side of Earth compared to the ISS, the shuttle wouldn't be able to dock with the ISS since the shuttle doesn't zoom around.
33547
Same way they do anywhere....\n\nJets take in air and spit it back out. A jet wouldn't work in space.\n\nRockets carry their fule with them, and so don't need to take anything in.\n\nThe mass and energy pushing away from the rocket will push just as hard in space as on Earth, and will do all the better since there is less gravity to worry about.