Gene shakes his head. "No, we only achieved spaceflight within the past sixty or so years. Like you said, baby steps."

So you have spacecraft and an interstellar empire, but no airplanes? Amelia. What fool designed your world backwards? He does his best to hide his bafflement and says, "Yes, it's a..." He sketches an airplane out next to the space shuttle, a simple top-down view. "It's what most people use to travel great distances now." He's plenty familiar with airplanes, having blown one up in flight and all. Amelia doesn't need to know that. "Ships - sailing ships, on the water - are now mostly used for military purposes, pleasure cruises, or commercial freight. Flying is a lot faster than sailing."

He looks at the shuttle. "There are two large rocket boosters that get it up off the ground in the first place, and then come off the shuttle after liftoff - those are reused, I think. The fuel for the orbiter goes into the engines. I'm not really sure how it works. Ask Stark." Then his throat inexplicably tightens when he remembers Stark's not here, none of them are here. Not like that bothers him.