Between Planets Shuttle 21

Heinlein does not usually provide very much physical description of the hardware in his books, but he did provide more than usual when he wrote about the Venusian shuttle. In addition to the "needle nose" already mentioned, he also described the shuttle as having "retractable" wings. There is no way to know if he was thinking of something like the swing wings that were introduced on modern jet aircraft but they do perform the function he seemed to be going for. And they also fit Clifford Geary's illustration well, too.