Does creating space plane that can go sub-orbital straight from runway without mother ship is possible?

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

suborbital can't be that hard, just add different kinds of engines. 

suborbital can't be that hard, just add different kinds of engines. 

[magnemoe]

9 hours ago, wumpus said:

Isn't the only real difference from Blue Origin's New Shepard and what the OP wanted was that the New Shepard launches (and lands) vertically?  I suppose you could shove a near-billion dollar jet engine in there to use a bit less fuel, but it would require a ton of flights (just to space, not to orbit) to justify itself.

Yes, planes are more efficient, something who went to mach 2-3 on jet and then up to mach 6 on a rocket engine would be lighter. You don't need 9 km/s just 2 so the jet will do half of the job. 
Downside it that this would be far more expensive to develop and build compared to an rocket who is an tank with engine at back. 

[DDE]

On ‎23‎.‎06‎.‎2016 at 10:20 PM, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

suborbital can't be that hard, just add different kinds of engines.

Dead weight. It's what kills jet-assisted orbital SSTOs and it's going to wreck the life of a suborbital SSTO as well, because the airbreathers would be off and the wings wouldn't be providing significant lift for much of the acceleration stage.

[kiwi1960]

Well.... in the old days, a B52 took off and air launched an x15 rocket plane... if they had tweaked it and made it space worthy, I reckon it could have reached orbit.. not that it could have done much once there though. The US air Force was once working on an interceptor that could launch like a plane and reach orbit with some kind of missiles to intercept incoming ICBM's....

And of course, there is a rumour that they are working on one now armed with lasers.... that is, its its not already reality.

 

[DDE]

4 hours ago, kiwi1960 said:

Well.... in the old days, a B52 took off and air launched an x15 rocket plane... if they had tweaked it and made it space worthy, I reckon it could have reached orbit.. not that it could have done much once there though.

Doubtful. It's need a whole lot more dV.

4 hours ago, kiwi1960 said:

And of course, there is a rumour that they are working on one now armed with lasers.... that is, its its not already reality.

So they're half a century behind the Soviet Union. Again.

[kiwi1960]

5 hours ago, DDE said:

Doubtful. It's need a whole lot more dV.

So they're half a century behind the Soviet Union. Again.

1) Its why I said "with modifications" ... it wasn't designed to go into orbit... originally.

2) No.... because its an old rumour... and the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore.