Space ship and space shuttle?

Once in orbit, it is going parallel to the ground at about 17,500 MPH. It can speed up a little, which will take it to a higher orbit, but it can't carry enough fuel to go fast enough to get very high. The rocket power available for launch can only lift a limited weight to orbit and fuel is heavy.

It can also slow down a bit, which sends it to a lower orbit. It can change course left and right a bit, but only by using more fuel, and at 17,500 MPH it takes a lot of fuel to change directions by much. It can't go straight up because that would mean stopping the 17,500 MPH orbital speed parallel to the ground, and it can't carry enough fuel to do that.

So it can't "back up" either. It can point its nose straight up and fire its engines but that only would send it up at a few hundred MPH, which combined with the 17,500 MPH orbital speed parallel to the ground puts it in an elliptical orbit that goes higher at apogee but LOWER at perigee than before they did that maneuver. The same with pointing straight down.

By the way, a higher orbit is actually slower, but you have to speed up to get there. This is done in 2 steps. First you speed up to change from a circular orbit with perigee at the altitude of the old circular orbit and apogee higher.

As it coasts to the apogee is slows down to a speed even slower than before the engines were fired. Then it must fire the engines again and speed up some more, but still not going as fast as before the first engine burn, and then it is in a higher, circular, and slower speed orbit. Also, all this is true for all rockets and satellites and manned capsules (like Soyuz), not just the NASA Space Shuttle.

Any space craft going to the Moon or another planet must be very small and light weight so that the launch vehicle and get both the space craft AND enough extra fuel into orbit to have enough to speed up from the 17,500 MPH orbital speed to the 25,000 MPH escape speed, which then lets it go away from Earth forever without ever falling back even with no more rocket power being used.

For small movements the shuttle or similar craft would use thrusters to move in, I think, any direction. For large movements they would use thrusters to turn around so they were pointing in the direction they wanted to go then fire the main engine for a bit Direction of movement and which way to fire the engine gets a bit more complicated than that because of orbital mechanics, and the shuttle had a limited amount of fuel so could not keep going up that far, but that's the basic idea.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.