system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why do you need to reach escape velocity?

If you had a rocket that provided as much thrust as a helicopter, why couldn't you gently lift into space. Gravity doesn't get stronger?

EDIT: Thanks for informing me about so many things.

1) Gravity in orbit is 90% of that on earth, astronauts are in free fall, hence 'weightlessness'.
(btw, from an astronauts perspective does it feel different to be in 90% gravity and in free fall compared to really being in an environment with very little gravity, say half way to the moon. Also, when Burt Rutan won the X-prize, they showed pictures of the pilot letting out M&Ms that floated around the cabin, was this really more of a publicity stunt with this act being not that different than what you see happen with on the vomit comet, i.e. he was in free fall at the top of his arc?)

2) Escape velocity is not necessary to get into space, but it is to get into orbit.

3) If you had a rocket that had the same thrust as a helicopter, that wasn't dependent on oxygen, you could gently lift into space if it could run long enough.
(So why don't they do this. Jets fly for thousands of miles on a tank of gas. Would carrying the oxygen as well as the gas make a craft too heavy to go far enough? I know that there are many practical reasons to get into 'orbit' but it strikes me if flying that high with what I am describing as slow lift rockets would have been created already an would have some practical use.)
gpt
Escape velocity is defined as the velocity necessary to escape from a gravitation field with *no further propulsion*. A rocket providing constant propulsion doesn't fit the concept; think more in terms of firing a cannon. As you can imagine, firing a cannon ball gently would not allow it to escape the Earth's gravitational field.