Steam Powered Flying Vehicle?

IIRC Langley's aeroplane was steam powered, too. Hard to say how much range either would have had (if either had actually been designed well enuff to fly) since both crashed very shortly after launching. I note neither were capable of takeoff under their own power; Langley's was launched with a catapult.

 

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It's one of my favorite Pournelle stories.

The spaceship in question was a variant on the ORION drive principle.

Basically, a "gun" powered rocket, in that the recoil of the exploding shell drives the ship forward. In KDSS, they used gunpowder shells.

There is a similar ORION drive in Footfall also by Pournelle (and Niven), but in that one, they use nuclear bombs under a VERY THICK metal dome. Drop a bomb thru a hatch beneath the dome, *BOOM* the dome (and the smaller ship attached to the upper side) goes skyward ... THat ship used water to cool the dome, and the steam thusly generated was tapped to drive turbines for electricity. Also, the steam was vented for maneuvering thrusters.

(there! I neatly tied this bit BACK to the use of STEAM ...!

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Yeah, I also was thinking of the spaceship Michael from Footfall when the subject of "steam powered spaceship" came up. I can't recommend the novel overall-- despite my love for Niven's fiction-- but the finale featuring the Michael is a real page-turner!

However, the Project Orion drive vessel, which uses nuclear bombs for propulsion, is more than slightly off topic for a steam-era spaceship!

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