> I literally thought that launching rockets into orbit meant shooting them really high until they were "in space"
It makes sense that having a high horizontal speed keeps you in orbit if orbit is your goal, but with enough firepower you should be able to make it to a point where you don't fall backwards anymore, right? Or at least where falling is negligible enough that you can stay in that spot for a while.
From the point of view of the game, several of my little green men can attest that coming home from a solar orbit is rather difficult (energy-intensive, time-intensive, or both)
If the plan is to end up in Earth's orbit, you don't want to shoot so far as to leave our sphere of influence. Earth's gravity drawing you towards it is a key component of orbit. But the other component is having enough horizontal (relative to the surface) to keep missing it - and that's what was missing from the parent's "what goes up, must come down" flights.