The main article and the Real Life section mention a working space-plane would need to reach a speed of Mach 25. However, The Other Wiki's article for the Lynx rocketplane
claims that it is intended to reach suborbital spaceflight after reaching only a speed of Mach 2 in the atmosphere. The company's own website also mentions speeds lower than Mach 3.5, while reaching an altitude of 100 km. Granted, this rocket hasn't been proven to work yet, but... Well, how would this work? And where does the Mach 25 number come from?
The author chose to define Space Plane as a vehicle that can actually achieve orbit. Orbital speed is on the order of mach 25. The Lynx wouldn't cout as a true Space Plane because it is suborbital. Admittedly, you could build a spacecraft that only went mach 2 until it got 100km or so above the surface and then accelerated into orbit, or just travelled straight up at mach 2 until it got so high that orbital speed was slower.
"In distress", my ass.
Question: Is being able to land on wheels like a Real Life aircraft a requirement for this trope, or are skids and anti-gravity or other VTOL options acceptable as long as the craft can fly and fight (if that's its purpose, anyway) in the atmosphere?
For example, in the Wing Commander novels set before WC3, pretty much all the fighters are mentioned or shown as being atmospheric capable, but some of those that are also in the games are shown as having skids, not actual wheels.
I'm asking for the sake of a planned entry in the Literature folder, which I'll include below if only so I don't have to try to remember what I was going to post, when this discussion thread gets answered a year after the fact. :P
* In the [[Literature/WingCommander Wing Commander novels]], particularly the ones set before ''Wing Commander III'', unlike in the games (see below) very few of the fighters are said to ''not'' be capable of flying and fighting in an atmosphere.
All your safe space are belong to Trump Hide / Show Replies
The header may have changed since you asked this question, but as of today, it clearly states that VTOL vehicles do qualify as spaceplanes.
I'm deleting the entry for X-15 (1961) from Film. The header clearly states that the X-15 does not qualify, as it was not a single-stage-to-orbit design. (It required a B-52 jet to lift it to its launch altitude of 45,000 feet.)
I'm also deleting the 1983 TV-movie Starflight One (a.k.a. Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land). The plane in that film is not designed for orbital flight and only ends up in orbit because of an engine malfunction. It has no heat shield and cannot reenter the atmosphere without being destroyed. Therefore, it does not qualify as a spaceplane.
Edited by 75.182.67.118