A Russian Orthodox priest blesses the Soyuz MS-07 spacecraft at the launch pad of the Russian-leased Baikonur Cosmodrome on December 16, 2017. The next day, the Soyuz carried three people to the International Space Station.
See all the world's active rocket launch sites
To get to space, humankind relies on key launch sites scattered around the world. Here's where they are.
Space may be the final frontier—but sometimes getting there is half the fun. Today, dozens of sites around the world host spaceports, the specialized facilities built to send and receive rocket-powered vehicles on flights into the cosmos.
Geography and physics conspired to place our first gateways to space in the mid-latitudes, in sparsely populated areas as close to the Equator as feasibly possible. Due to Earth's rotation on its axis, the ground underneath you is moving faster the closer you are to the Equator, just like the outer edge of a spinning record. This means equatorial launches leave the planet with more oomph, making the launches more efficient.
More poleward launch sites, such as northern Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodrome, offer different advantages. The
