Business Insider recently produced an interesting two-minute video (below) answering a question I’ve asked myself: “Why can’t you fly commercial airplanes into space?”
Turns out that there are a number of reasons, and they couldn’t even make it halfway there. A big part of the problem is Earth’s gravity, which of course you need to escape it in order to reach space. Most planes don’t go over 45,000 feet, but as the video mentions one daredevil pilot once went 123,532 feet up—making his the highest ground-launched plane. And that was in 1977! According to the video, that’s just a third of the way to space.
FYI: You can watch the video at work because there’s no narration, just music. Hit your mute button and let it fly.
Here is why you can’t fly commercial airplanes into space pic.twitter.com/6TgXJV55zG
— Business Insider (@businessinsider) October 30, 2018
