Question: why don't rockets plummet straight down to earth from space?

Maggie Lieu answered on 13 Nov 2017:

That’s a really good question! Let me tell you in the form of an example:
When you throw a rock, it will travel up and across then fall to the ground. Now if you throw it a little bit faster, the rock will travel a little bit further. Now if you throw the rock fast enough then the rock will never hit the ground. It will keep falling towards the Earth but because of the curvature it will never hit. This is exactly what the international space station is doing, it is constantly falling towards the Earth but because its travelling so fast it will never hit the earth