Wings are great if you want to go a long distance horizontally through the atmosphere at subsonic speeds.
Most of a rocket's travel is in a ballistic arc that's vertical at takeoff and supersonic. On the upward journey, wings are unwanted drag and weight. On the downward journey, they suffer drag heating and stress. And they don't work on planets with a lighter or no atmosphere. In theory all you have to do is fire the rocket engine that's already there with a comparatively small amount of fuel to slow it from terminal velocity (probably subsonic) to a stop exactly above the ground. We finally have the computer control systems to make that feasible.
People keep designing spaceplanes on paper, but the engines are the limiting factor there.
Most of a rocket's travel is in a ballistic arc that's vertical at takeoff and supersonic. On the upward journey, wings are unwanted drag and weight. On the downward journey, they suffer drag heating and stress. And they don't work on planets with a lighter or no atmosphere. In theory all you have to do is fire the rocket engine that's already there with a comparatively small amount of fuel to slow it from terminal velocity (probably subsonic) to a stop exactly above the ground. We finally have the computer control systems to make that feasible.
People keep designing spaceplanes on paper, but the engines are the limiting factor there.