My post from last night seems to have been lost in some sort of forum restore, so I'm going to give this a much quicker answer than last time.
But be it known GS, that it was a pretty pwn I did last night. This one will just not be so pretty.
First, the little pwn. I know all about lift. But, you seemed to have missed a little. The reason the wings on the X-15 are so stubby has nothing at all to do with how much thrust was involved. Since the lift provided at that time actually hurt the flight profile of it. No, the size of the airfoils was determined by the weight of the aircraft when out of fuel. Since the only time lift was needed was in it's un-powered landings. Don't believe me? You should check out the X-15's web site. The wing size on the X-15 is just what is needed to bring the empty (of fuel) plane to a safe landing.
There is a major flaw in your logic. You don't seem to know enough about the X-15. Since the X-15 was pretty much your experimental prototype for many of the designs of the Shuttle, let's go over the flight profiles of each.
Both need assistance to get off the ground. A big ass bomber or a couple solid rocket boosters.
During launch (and they are both launced) both aircrafts experience lift from their wings that has to be compensated for to keep them on course. In the case of the X-15, it's a constant pushing of the nose down to keep it from looping back. In the case of the shuttle, it's just putting that in the course calculations.
The only real difference between the two aircraft on launch is one is like a 747 on autopilot, while the other is more manual. But just because the 747 is on auto pilot, doesnt mean it's not flying, so we can't hold that against the Shuttles.
Both are meant to operate in atmosphere and out of it.
Both have had missions outside the atmosphere.
If there is one closer to a missile, it would have to be the X-15, since it's actually shot from an airplane itself, and accelerates quicker than the shuttle (so if the shuttle doesn't use it's lift, there's no way the X-15 did)
In both cases, powered flight (thrust) is a very short percentage of the mission. The thrust of an X-15 lasted only about a minute and a half. 8 times shorter or so than the Shuttle, which has that big drop tank of fuel.
Both are rocket powered.
Both make un-powered landings.
BTW, when the Shuttle is in Launch, it is also powered, and is moving faster, under that same power than the X-15 did, which blows away your point number 3.
Last, but not least, Guiness. Pffft. Guiness wouldn't change the record unless challenged to. That could be as simple as nobody at NASA asking them to. Not proof at all to me.
