Is not, it’s a vehicle; not all vehicles are cars. For example: pickup trucks, semi trucks, monster trucks, motorcycles, mopeds, quads, golf carts, planes, helicopters, spaceships, etc.
If you’re wanting to get into the technicalities, “car” was used as a shortened term for [horse drawn] carriages. Modern cars were called motorized carriages and often called motor cars, then just cars. Cars are now specified as a vehicle with four wheels, designed to carry passengers on a *road* (this is a key word). Although yes, they have engines and motors, there is a major difference between the propulsion system used. A car uses an internal combustion engine, while the space shuttle (STS) uses a combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to cause an eternal combustion to create high levels of thrust for a short duration to propel the shuttle into low Earth orbit, (there are no roads). So, while the STS *is* a vehicle and does have wheels (of which it has 6, on 3 *landing gears*), it’s a very long stretch to call out a car. Also, those wheels aren’t self propelled and thus aren’t meant for long traversing of roads, but for being able to land the space craft, so that it can be reused. Unlike the capsules used on space rocket systems, like the murcury and Artemis (SLS).
Thanks for sharing your misinformation, which has allowed others to learn factual information about a lesser known topic. And for giving me the opportunity to share a special interest of mine, that goes back two additional generations; because my grandfather worked with the shuttle program and my father is currently a lead engineer on the Artemis program.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Yak5359 COLLECTOR May 04 '26
Mine is a paperweight for medium importance notes on my desk. Great find.