Yes, agreed. Getting off the planet is easy. Staying off the planet is harder. As long as you're in the gravity well you are going to crash back down. The trick

Yes, agreed. Getting off the planet is easy. Staying off the planet is harder. As long as you're in the gravity well you are going to crash back down. The trick is to move so fast horizontally that you overshoot your target and keep missing the ground. (I'm pretty sure "miss the ground" is the scientifically accurate term here) Anyway, those speeds are so fast that once you get on course to finally not miss, the friction from even the extremely thin atmosphere, at those speeds, is incredible.