[T.B. Yoits]

The artist rendered a far outdated design. Rutan’s “shuttlecock” design eliminates the need for expensive insulating tiles for entry at high speeds.

[Sparticus]

Yikes... a super catapult launched space plane. Low altitude bird strikes will be catastrophic.

[Vaquero]

I imagine an aerospike engine that could breathe air while air was still present then LOX once no O2 is left in the atmosphere .

[Berosus]

Back in the 1960s, I watched a kid’s show called “Fireball XL-5,” where the acting was all done by puppets. The rocket on that show was launched from a horizontal track, like this one.

[1Old Pro]

Startup Radian Aerospace has emerged from stealth to announce it has secured US$27.5 million in seed funding to develop a single-stage to orbit (SSTO) spaceplane called Radian One, which is designed to lift and land horizontally.

Like a mothballed space shuttle?

[Magnum44]

[ProtectOurFreedom]

“launch horizontally using a rocket-powered sled”

How long is the track? How big is the ramp at the end of the track?

I guess this precludes manned space launches. It would scramble your brain and innards.

[Telepathic Intruder]

A “single-stage to orbit spaceplane”. That was the original goal of the Space Shuttle program back in the 80’s: a cheap way to get into space. The result was only slightly less expensive to launch than an expendable rocket, and could only be used for low earth orbit missions. In other words, a failure. Can they do better today? I won’t hold my breath. I thought we would have cities on the moon by now.

[Magnum44]

It will have to be pretty good to beat current designs...

[Sirius Lee]

Pan Am operates a sexier fleet.

[JohnBovenmyer]

Some alleged additional information on their plan here Would be able to land on any sufficient runway, but if it happened to come down somewhere else I'm not sure how they'd return it. The launch sled sounds like immobile, expensive capital. Still, if they think enough of its potential to spend their own money, more luck to them! In theory suborbital hops can be done with about the same amount of energy as current long distance jet travel and with much shorter travel times. If engineering can achieve that potential at competitive prices and without other issues like ground level sonic booms it would be wonderful. And about half the energy cost of traveling to anywhere within the solar system is in reaching low earth orbit. Anything that makes that cheaper makes real space travel's physics more practical. That still leaves the twin biological problems of humans coping with extended low gravity and radiation, but it's the literal first step needed.