The space race is getting harder

A vast technological gap is opening up as humans race to colonise the solar system

India is among only a dozen nations that have put an object in orbit. We first did this 40 years ago and this is something the richest man on earth still hasn’t been able to do, though his space company is now two decades old.

The reason so few have succeeded is because launching objects into orbit is hard. Things stay in orbit only if they achieve a speed horizontal to the earth of 27,000 kmph. If this “escape velocity” is not achieved, the object falls back. The restrictions that physics imposes on rocket design are what makes this difficult: