The ionosphere is not the same thing as the atmosphere. The ionosphere is a shell of super hot gas outside of the atmosphere.

The ionosphere is not outside the atmosphere, it's part of the atmosphere.

The atmosphere consists of many layers. From the ground up, these are the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere.

You may be thinking of the thermosphere, which is indeed very hot (thus the name), albeit with such low density that it wouldn't transfer much heat to your spacesuit or spacecraft. But the thermosphere is part of the atmosphere too.

https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/thermosphere/en/

The ISS and other low earth orbit satellites are orbiting inside the thermosphere. Yes, the ISS is in the atmosphere and suffers from a small amount of atmospheric drag, so it requires occasional reboosts to maintain altitude.

The ionosphere isn't exactly a separate "layer" from these. It's a very tall region of ionized gas that starts near the top of the stratosphere and overlaps parts of the layers above. Its exact limits vary with solar conditions.

The ionosphere is actually made up of several layers of its own, defined by the solar energy wavelength that causes ionization in each layer. These are the D, E, and F layers, and occasional sub-layers within those. Hams and other shortwave radio operators are familiar with these ionospheric layers because of their different effects on radio propagation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionosphere

https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/ionosphere/en/

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/science/atmosphe...

And I finally get to say about one of my own comments: "Username checks out."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratoscope

(I'm actually named after the Truetone Stratoscope radio antennas, not the balloon, but sometimes people do say I'm full of hot air.)

that nasa site was actually interesting. but i think like i'm 5.

But, it is outside the environment?

That's what I a call a content free sentence.

Saying "can" also implies "might not".

"Need" needs to come with "in order to do X". I don't need to breathe, but if I want to stay alive I do. So do I need to breather or not? It's either.

>Rocket exhaust can have impact with atmosphere, we need to study it more on short and long term effects.

Wasn't this already known? We have been sending rockets to space for a while now, right?

EDIT: Found something from 2014, https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/2014...

Spare me your rocketry mumbo jumbo!

This is ELI5 territory, which is cool because we probably need one of these as well.

The rocket made the air go funny which meant your phone got confused about where it was.

Spot on!

The really fast up goer made the air go funny which meant your phone got confused about where it was.

https://xkcd.com/1133/

I call it EOD explanation.

EOD?

I'm assuming "End Of Day."

As in, after a full day, my brain is fatigued from overly-complex discussions and just needs the most direct, un-fussy information possible.

That sound right, mk3w9?

Yes, the - at the “End of the Day” EOD

Esoteric Order of Dagon

Explosive Ordnance Disposal