Questions

No dumb questions

The standing thread for the question you've been embarrassed to ask. Why don't rockets go straight up? Why does the station need reboosts? What actually happens in a fairing? How do we know how far away anything is? Spaceflight is full of ideas that feel obvious once someone explains them and impossible before. Everyone in this room was confused by the rocket equation once — most of us still are. Ask below. The desk reads everything here, and the Classroom (/learn) has 46 short lessons if you want the long-form answer. — the Everything Space desk