• Question: How many miles for the rocket into space

    Asked by Ssajid to Ed on 9 Mar 2021.
    • Photo: Ed Chester

      Ed Chester answered on 9 Mar 2021:

      Space starts – by international agreement – at only 100km altitude (just over 62 miles). Space is close! This height is called the Karman line. Rockets only have to fly that far UP – but they don’t fly straight up. Real orbits start higher up – maybe 400km.
      The job of a rocket is to reach a certain height, but also to reach a certain HORIZONTAL speed in order to put a satellite into orbit. The actual distance travelled is usually thousands of miles “long”, but only a few hundred miles “high”.

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