system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Earth's escape velocity is 11.2 km/s, but would anything happen if a land vehicle were to move that fast across Earth's surface?
gpt
It would burn up like a meteor. The density of the atmosphere is too high at the surface.

If we neglect that effect, and also neglect drag, friction, etc. then yes, it would escape the Earth. The funny thing about escape velocity is that *direction doesn't matter* as long as there is no impact against the surface or atmospheric entry.

Assuming your vehicle is moving *exactly* at escape speed, over a small distance it would look like travelling on the surface. But the curvature of the parabola is lower than the curvature of Earth, so after a while it would look like "taking off", then getting higher and higher as it flies into space. If it's moving a little bit faster then the trajectory becomes a hyperbola, but the rest stays the same.