Dammit, I just said during the initial stages of a launch, a large amount of fuel is needed to provide the KE to lift the rocket. Then I just said that the KE changes into GPE as time progresses and distance increases, thus, when there's a huge amount of KE that must mean there must be a huge amount of it turning into GPE - increasing GPE.I wrote gravatational potential energy is increasing during launch as the rocket is losing mass from fuel consumption and thus losing kinetic energy. From Law of conservation of energy (state definition here) the rocket must be gaining gravatational potenial enegy as it moves upwards
I guess I should have mentioned the conservation of energy part, and thus, KE and GPE have an inverse relationship.