[BwanaNdege]

Artistic license?

There is no way anything with that little of a wing can lift enough fuel & oxidizer to make it to orbit, let alone lift off only half way down the runway. With that long a fuselage aft of the main gear it could not have that much angle of THAT close to the runway.

/armchair aerodynamics

[Norm Lenhart]

F104 Starfighter
X15 Rocketplane

Raw thrust overcomes a multitude of short winged sins ;)

[Talisker]

There is no way anything with that little of a wing can lift enough fuel & oxidizer to make it to orbit, let alone lift off only half way down the runway. With that long a fuselage aft of the main gear it could not have that much angle of THAT close to the runway.

Speed.

Speed, speed and more speed.

Which requires fuel, fuel and more fuel.

Unless, of course, they've got a large magnetic field torus rotating at about 10 million rpms in the center of the thing, to reduce it's gravitational attraction, and lessen its weight.

In which case they can do it right, and include a grand piano and a cocktail lounge.

: )