A space shuttle is made up of four parts – the orbiter, the external fuel tank, and the two white boosters. Only the orbiter has wings and can fly like a plane. But its engines are not powerful enough on their own to get it up to orbital velocity. Without wings, launching horizontally doesn’t work well at all. It requires spending most of the launch going very quickly in the thick lower atmosphere which means you get a lot of drag. You need to launch almost straight up in order to get out of the atmosphere as quickly as possible.
Why don’t space shuttles take off like airplanes?
