• gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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    9 hours ago

    Yeah, if by “going over”, you mean accelerating in the horizontal direction, then you’re right.

    Just to illustrate this: Consider we want to put 1 kg of mass into orbit.

    First, we have to raise it by 100 km. That requires 1e6 J = 1 MJ of energy (formula is m*g*h).

    Then, we have to accelerate it sideways, to a speed of 8 km/s. The energy to do that is 32 MJ (formula is ½*m*v²).

    So, most of the energy (97%) is actually in the sideways movement.