When does the perspective from the cockpit of a spaceship change?

[sophiecentaur]

But it still couldn't fly for hours.

Right. It seems that something like the shuttle design will have too little lift to keep it up for long but, once it slows up a bit it will fly as a dumpy glider. What you said about the braking effect on the ship is making sense to me. It can only 'fly' a bit better than a capsule during the hypersonic phase.
This has been very interesting, thanks.