Jerry, hat is my very point )and keep in mind I am an outsider, not to say "ignorant" in the matter, but
"
Getting out of the atmosphere isn't the major problem; it's getting back in and surviving re-entry. We all saw what just a little hole in the heat shield can cause - catastrophic in-flight breakup in the last shuttle accident. There is less than a 1 degree window of approach angle - too shallow and you skip off of the atmosphere back into space; too steep and you are going too fast for any heat shield to keep the craft from burning up."
Are you sure this also doesn't have to do with mass/surface ratio ? In other words, a brick will drop straight down, and a brick with wings will drop in a manoeuverable trajectory, but what about a "quasi-plane"?
While I do realize, that, as ArtTeacher points out, I am asking for duplicate propulsion and fuel systems, it is just as true I am daydreaming about something which would NOT require booster rockets, a launch pad or anything which even vaguely resembles Cape Canaveral.
We have been using 1930's philosophy by launching payload straight up vertically, instead of allowing it to climb using lift.
Of course, I'm no Leonardo of the rocket age, I'm just asking...
...I'm tired of seeing a naked Emperor strut about in underwear...