Why can't the shuttle and rockets take off from earth in a westerly direction, rather than easterly?
by 
bikinibob
ANSWERS: 2
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The shuttle is a really big and heavy orbiter. It does not have a lot of surplus energy; it needs the extra boost from the Earth's rotation to obtain the easterly orbit; called prograde orbit. The boost of speed from the Earth's rotation varies with latitude; at the Kennedy Space Center that additional speed boost is about 1000 MPH. The rockets that are designed to put unmanned satellites into orbit have enough energy to put smaller payloads into orbit in a Westerly direction; it is called a retrograde orbit and those launches usually take place from White Sands.
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simplify: becuase we rotate on earth it throws us outward. if we travel that same direction we are already going that speed compared to the stars, if we go in the oppsite direction we must go faster than the earth backwards and then go to orbit speed that way. hope that helps.
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