Looks kinda like the X-30 spaceplane concept, with a little of the X-33 mixed in too.

Lovely I've always love the designs of this type of aircraft, and it so beautiful a thing of beauty...

I love this - the lines are all so fluid, and the shape is exquisite.

"Brock, fire up the X-1, I'm running low on vodka!"

The Venture Brothers captures that Johnny Quest feel even better than the original series in my opinion. Better animated too. I tried to watch an episode recently and my fond memories of the show shattered in a million pieces.

Anyway, truly a well done design.

Yeah, it was like that when I watched some old Speed Racer episodes a few years back. I just stared at the TV and wondered "I pedaled like a maniac from school every afternoon to get home in time to watch this!?"

This makes me think of something described -- a "gig." It was capable of SSTO, landing, and limited open space travel.

Then he went and (in his setting, "The Terran Wars") had it upgraded with more power and weapons.

Icky, icky wings. The aerospace engineer in me insists that dispite the sleak and visually appealing design, wings have no place on sub-orbital transports.

The space shuttle seems to need them for some reason. It may be that whole 'come back down to earth in a controlled way' thing.
If you mean the winglets, yeah. Although if movable like the XB-70 they could very well be beneficial.

<rumour control> The space shuttle doesn't have wings to land, it has wings to land up to 1500 miles (sideways) away from it's flight path. (A requirement the USAF forced on NASA after bailing them out financially, so they could play pirates in orbit with russian property.) A point to point transport doesn't need this.

Think about it. Reentry is one of the harshest enviroments you can expose technology to. Gliding means maintaining yourhigh speed for as long as possible - and staying in this enviroment for *much* longer than you need to. Something the shutttle has no choice in even if it wants to land directly under it's flight path. It is an insane idea.

The best shape for a reusable rocket is a stubby nose cone VTOL that employs base first reentry. Space planes like this are like giant combat robots. If you can build wings that can survive in that enviroment, then you can build rocket engines that are 100% reliable and (paradoxically) quieter than the plane version. They look really pretty, and could work, but would never fare well against more sensible competition.

Granted the fastest way to transport a payload anywhere in the world would be an ICBM. Getting Grandma Feldstien and her herring bone china set from New York to Paris in 20 minutes may be doable that way but not very sexy... or safe. I believe you are thinking suborbital as in the shuttle not quite reaching orbital velocity and reentry where I think suborbital in this case is like mach 6 at 150,000 feet, quite doable with today's technology (not economically though) and wouldn't need a reentry like an Apollo capsule and should be able to land at a reasonable airport. I'm thinking more SST on steroids and you kinda want wings on that.

>mach 6 at 150,000 feet, quite doable with today's technology

With a pinch of salt and lose definition of 'today', possibly. I'm not aware of a high speed & high thrust engine which has actualy flown. It's far from certain one could be built with enough umph to carry Grandma Feldstien and her herring bone china at all - let alone in a reasonable level of comfort and safety.

But the fact is we could have done it with a DC-X style vehicle thirty years ago. Any technology that makes wings practical simply makes VTOL rockets better still. VTOL can safely land in a farmer's field. Passenger planes (super or sub sonic) generally can't. VTOL neatly sidesteps the problem of drag, which is the bane of high speed flight. VTOL has a lower noise signature, since it can have comparible thrust and just goes straight up, as opposed to flying over 20,000 homes on it's slow climb to altitude. VTOL is also a hell of a lot cheaper to build and operate.

You got me on sexy though.

The X-33 was designed for mach 13+ so mach 6 isn't unattainable and it had wings :P The X-51 which is about to fly is using a scramjet to reach mach 5 later this year on conventional jet fuel. The DC-X used a hell of a lot of fuel to land meaning a lot of dead weight to lug around. You are right though, it would be a lot better if you had the technology to do it without a huge price in landing fuel weight.

"Department of Moving Things"

Best. Name. Ever.

Hmmm interesting concept. Have you heard of a SCRamjet?

Yep, the whole bottom of the craft is one big scramjet unit.

Awesome! What would you say her maximum speed is in orbit?

Sleek, and possibly fast! It's a very nice design and I see a slight resemblance to the X-30 spaceplane.