The escape velocity of earth is roughly $11 kms^{-1}$. However, what if a long ladder was built extending out of Earth's atmosphere and considerably more. Then if something was to climb up at much less than the escape velocity, what would happen when it reached the end?
And what if the object that climbed the "ladder" then fired some kind of thruster/rocket and was going fast enough so that it orbited the Earth. It would mean less energy required to get into orbit?