[wtallis]

For the moment, I suppose you can still make a case for casual use of the term "spaceship" to include suborbital flights. I doubt that will continue for very long as private orbital spacecraft and launch vehicles become less novel; the sub-orbital minor leagues probably won't be seen by most as being the "real thing".

[njloof]

Just ask Alan Shepard. You know, the first American in space?

[blacksmith_tb]

Presumably because in this sense, the Mercury wasn't "his spaceship" as he didn't own it or the organization that produced it (like Gagarin and the Vostok, for that matter).

[rbanffy]

Mercury was capable of staying in space. The rocket that put it on a suborbital flight is a different thing.