Folks,

I am a newbie here. I am learning. So, now I will ask a stupid question. Has any space craft ever left the solar system by going perpendicular to the planetary plane? We see the solar system always depicted as planets revolving around the sun on what I assume is the sun's equatorial plane. But, what is outside that plane? Why can't a space ship travel "up" into the rest of the uinverse?

Thanks

Four spacecraft (two Pioneers, two Voyagers) are currently leaving the solar system. Five, if you count New Horizons which is on its way to a flyby of Pluto.

None of them are leaving exactly in the plane of the planets, but none of them are leaving exactly perpendicular to the plane either. They are leaving at various angles to the plane, based on their mission and their last flyby of one of the large outer planets. Their paths were set up to take advantage of the location of specific objects, like moons, during their flybys.

That said, space is big. Really big. The aforementioned craft, while they are leaving our solar system, are for all intents and purposes still within the Sun's influence and it will be tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years before they pass somewhere in the neighborhood of another star.

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"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender

There is no motion of any major bodies that is perpendicular to the plane that would help assist such a launch.

plan B, use the orbit of earth as a booster with gravity assists to help along the way. I wouldn't want to try it any other way.

Make note some solar observatory craft have gone over the pole of the sun. They(it) didn't leave the system, but it did venture out of the plane considerably.

The Ulysses spacecraft is currently on an almost polar orbit around the Sun. It requires a lot of delta-v, which in its case was provided by a Jupiter fly-by.

http://ulysses.jpl.nasa.gov/

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Inside out, outside in - Perpetual change." - A British rock band

It should be possible to slingshot a craft into a path perpendicular the ecliptic. (or close to it) If we sent it outwards, aiming slightly above or below the asteroid belt, it could get a gravity assist by going pole to pole around Jupiter.

The OP has a point - almost everything I've seen that discusses the solar system talks about the ecliptic - with the exception of the putative planet that might cause comet showers on a regular (if millions of years long) basis. It'd be interesting to know if there are objects out there. It could also tell us things like whether most of the solar wind is in the ecliptic plane & how much effect solar rotation has on the flux that reaches out to heliopause.

I don't know (but do wonder) how much effort goes into looking 'north' or 'south' compared to that spent in the ecliptic.

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Voyager 1 took a trajectory well out of plane after it encountered Titan, since it was not targeted for any more planetary flybys after its Saturn encounter.
Pioneer 11 took an out of plane trajectory after it encountered Jupiter, swinging up and over to get to Saturn. It is currently exiting the Solar System well out of the ecliptic plane.

Voyager II is currently the only craft exiting the Solar System relatively in plane, since it encountered four planets on the way out.

See this NASA link.
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/science/neptune.html

The spacecraft flew over Neptune's north pole and was deflected into a trajectory far south of the ecliptic. This was necessary for a close approach to Triton in its steeply inclined orbit.

This heavens-above.com webpage shows the position of the two Voyagers and the two Pioneers and you can see that the two Voyagers are over 30 degrees out of the plane of the Ecliptic.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

That is why we have telescopes.

Probes don't encounter new bodies and discover planets or asteroids.

__________________
"I'm as accurate as any psychic. And I'm a cartoon!" -- Squidward

"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender