Why don't Space Shuttles fly down?

Question

When a space shuttle leaves earth, and thinking of the solar system as a flat plane, if they were heading toward the moon, why not go straight down? They always go out to search for stuff, who says theirs nothing of interest below us.

Answer 1

The Space Shuttle launches from sea level. If it were to "fly down", it would end up in the ocean. Is that what you meant?

Answer 2

Ummmm... what? If I understand your question correctly, you're asking why not explore what's in the regions "above" and "below" the planetary orbital plane. The reason is that we haven't detected anything out there of interest to us -- before you set out on a multi-million-dollar jaunt into space, you need a destination. Even though Columbus didn't know what was really out to the far west of Europe, he had an inkling that he would end up in the Indies, and went looking with that expectation in mind. If all the models that science has come up with for the formation of planets in a solar system tell you that they form roughly in a disk orbiting the sun in more or less the same plane, and all your scans of the night sky have found objects only within that theoretical plane and nowhere else, then that's where you go -- if we knew there were interesting things to visit outside of that plane, we would visit there.

Answer 3

I think that astronmers do look at the celestial sphere in a three dimensional plane, There just isn't anything below us that isn't light years away, but an interesting concept, the space shuttle isn't designed for exploration it is designed to carry satelites or other payloads into space...maybe someday it will carry a probe to look at the space below us...we just don't have the technology yet to look at objects outside of our solar system other than through imaging. We are getting closer to finding the propulsion sytem that may someday be able to go where no man has gone before, but not yet...Just a note the nearest star to us is 4.5 light years away, that means it would take a craft four and a half years to get to it if it was going light speed (186,000 miles per second).

Answer 4

The Space Shuttle only stays in low earth orbit, and does not "venture" out into space. We send satellites along the plane of the solar system because we can use the gravity of the planets to help slingshot the satellite further into space. if we were to send a satellite "down" as you refer to, it would enter a highly elliptical orbit around the sun since there is not enough energy available to get it out of the sun's gravitational influence. Currently we dont have the technology available to blast straight out into space without the assistance of interplanetary orbits since that would take a constantly accelerating vehicle, and a near infinite supply of fuel/ox or energy in general.

Answer 5

The velocity of the shuttle would be so great that man made forces couldn't combat the inertia fast enough before crashing, or the stop would be so fast that it would compress the space shuttle.

Answer 6

It photos extra suitable that way. Oh yeah, and because technically that's extra reliable in that place. that's much less complicated to fly at hypersonic speeds if the commute is dangling from the backside of the gas tank, extremely than attempting to make it perch on the right. think of logrolling.

Answer 7

We don't "search for stuff" using the Space Shuttle, we use telescopes.

Answer 8

Thats what i wondered. He means the space shuttle leaves our planet. Than travels downward so when you look back our planet would be above us.

Answer 9

Yeah, but then you'd need a drill and not a space shuttle.

Answer 10

there's nothing down there, at least nothing we can reach with current technology. years of telescope observation showed that.

you can go and hope to find something that's not visible, but I'd rather see my taxes spent on better public transport.