I have always had this doubt ever since I was a kid. Say I want to travel from China to US. Instead of flying in a plane half way around the world, is it possible that we wan just take off vertically upwards from China, move out of the atmosphere, wait for the earth to rotate so that US is right below our aircraft and simply descend down???
the question might sound stupid…but then hey… all human beings are entitled to ask some stupid questions in life!!!
Okay, somebody will be on soon with the physics of gravity and momentum and fun stuff like that, but I just want to point out that if you could ingore all that stuff, and you went straight up from China, you’d have to wait for 3/4 of the world to roll by before California showed up. The return trip would be a lot shorter. And if you’ve got enough thrust to get into orbit, you might as well aim yourself at California, because yu’d get there within an hour.
If you just rocket up above the atmosphere, you don’t magically stop moving horizontally. You have to shed the velocity given to you by the rotation of the earth, and then gain it back before you can reenter the atmosphere. With all the fuel and energy you expend, why not just fly straight there? It would probably be faster.
Actually, i saw a show a long time ago about those kooky inventors of the early 20th century, and one of em actually built a vessel to do this. It kinda looked like a helicoptor with no tail. 
You may not realise it but you have pretty much described an intercontinental ballistic missile except that you would need to have control on reentering, like the shuttle. It is not more energy efficient than an airplane as you need a lot of energy to climb so high.
Free bonus fact (I’m confident you know this, Alereon, but I thought it might help the OP grasp the idea better.
nikjoshi, as alereon mentioned, when you just go “up” you are already carrying with you the momentum of the earth – you have to overcome it before the earth will “rotate below you.” Think about it – otherwise going east would be much, much easier than going west.
Now here’s where the fun part is, as sailor alluded to. You can use that momentum to help you out when talking about ballistic or orbital heights. Rockets tend to be launched to the east to take advantage of the “free” momentum provided by the earth’s rotation rather than having to fight against it to get up into orbit.