How fast does it take For a shuttle to escape Earth's gravity?

In order to achieve the velocity required to attain low earth orbit the space shuttle is accelerated to approx 17,500 mph by the solid fuel rocket boosters.

The space shuttle is designed to go up into orbit and return to earth and therefore does not ever escape from Earth's gravity.

To answer the question and to make sure everyone understands, let's go back to basics. No matter where in the universe there is always gravity:

F = G ((m1*m2)/r^2)

F: is the gravitational force felt.

G: is the gravitational constant

m1 and m2: are the masses of the two objects

r: the distance between the two objects.

We can see with this equation that the further away from the Earth you get (r gets bigger) the weaker the force of gravity will be (F gets closer and closer to zero but never reaches it).

This may sound weird but the space shuttle stays in orbit because of gravity. iif you let go of an object, the object will fall straight down. However if you through it the object with a certain force, the object will fall further away and if we could give it enough force to reach a speed of 8 m/s then the object would constantly continue to fall around the Earth.

take a look at the image on this page and you should understand:

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newtongrav.html