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"There's a poetry in the materials we use to construct our world of artifacts; it speaks of our long history as a technological species."
- William Gibson

Spaceplane  
  A craft able to land on Earth and take off directly for space.  

As far as I know, this is the first use of the word "spaceplane" in science fiction.

WHAT COULD IT HAVE BEEN?

I CAN'T UNDERSTAND IT, ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS ON THIS PLANET WON'T PERMIT SUCH A THING. EITHER SOME POWERFUL BEINGS FROM SPACE, PERHAPS FROM ANOTHER UNIVERSE, ARE ENGAGED IN CONQUEST --- OR --- BUT I WON'T THINK OF THAT!

ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!


(Spaceplane from 'Zarnak' by Max Plaisted)

YOU CAN COUNT ON ME, VAECO. I'M LEAVING IMMEDIATELY IN MY SPACEPLANE!

Technovelgy from Zarnak, by Max Plaisted.
Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1937
Additional resources -

Here is the first panel in which it appears:


(Spaceplane panel from 'Zarnak' by Max Plaisted)

Compare to the space shuttle fro Hell Ship of Space (1940) by Frederic Arnold Kummer, Jr., the shuttle from Stars are Styx (1950) by Theodore Sturgeon, the shuttle ship and Winged Rocket Shuttle from Heinlein's 1951 novel Between Planets, the JAL shuttle from Gibson's 1984 novel Neuromancer and the Clarke Spaceplane from A Quantum Murder (1998) by Peter F. Hamilton.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Zarnak
  More Ideas and Technology by Max Plaisted
  Tech news articles related to Zarnak
  Tech news articles related to works by Max Plaisted

Spaceplane-related news articles:
  - Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic

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