Space flights don't really get a flight plan per se. Instead they just use various special use airspace - that is, in a sense, they fly uncontrolled but within

Space flights don't really get a flight plan per se. Instead they just use various special use airspace - that is, in a sense, they fly uncontrolled but within an area reserved for that purpose. One of the appeals of Spaceport America is that it is already surrounded by restricted airspace for the White Sands Missile Range, but the Spaceport itself is located near the western edge of WSMR. The WSMR's main restricted areas are always hot and have a general reputation for being difficult to enter (although ZAB does apparently give permission to airliners in the flight levels from time to time), but the Spaceport itself is located under restricted airspace that's only hot by NOTAM. I've flown around the area a number of times. It's actually a relatively busy area for general aviation, by New Mexico standards, because TorC municipal (KTCS) is a fairly popular airport with both paved and dirt runways and a lot of light aircraft like to go sightseeing over Elephant Butte reservoir. Back when I first got my ticket flying down to TorC and around the lake was a standard cross country solo. The flight was issued a TFR covering an area generally west of the existing R-5111, and additionally of course all of R-5111 (A,B,C,D) was activated (this is a normal White Sands Missile Range restricted area). I drew the TFR here since the FAA version with the drawing is gone: https://jbcrawford.us/f/HIGE-ivkmLprESd.jpg https://jbcrawford.us/f/HIGE-ivkmLprESd.jpg. I'm having a hard time finding any information on SpaceShipTwo's flight path from the Spaceport (I could find info on the typical flight plan from Mojave), but it's presumably to the north given the position of the Spaceport and its runway alignment. Given what I understand of the flight path for SpaceShipTwo, the major concern would be overrunning the special use airspace at the north end. That's inherently a bit risky because at low altitude a lot of GA traffic follows the Rio Grande, up at the flight levels it's probably not so big of a concern because a lot of commercial traffic has to go around further north (R-5107 C, the high altitude part of R-5107, is active continuously weekdays even though the WSMR north "call-up area" is rarely used). But because of the huge implications of a safety incident with commercial traffic the FAA is pretty careful about class A airspace. That's all getting into the weeds, but more to the point: what happens at "20 miles up" is not really the concern, that's actually outside of class A airspace and you can go back to VFR if you're up that high and, you know, can. The problem is that SpaceShipTwo returns via an unpowered glide, at pretty extreme performance, and so doesn't have much ability to maneuver for a lot of the return path. Being outside of envelope on the way up could cause it to come back down, later, through class A airspace with no TFR. If that's far enough north it could indeed be in a fairly busy corridor for commercial aircraft (coming around the top of R-5107 C&H) which is a dangerous situation indeed.