Gliders are aircraft without powerplants. They cannot take off on their own. In still air they can only sink gradually to the ground.
Good gliders are aero- dynamically very efficient, with L/D = 30 or more!
Gliders, having no powerplant, have to be towed aloft and then released. Often the towing is done by a powered aircraft; sometimes by a motor operated winch.
Gliders land much like powered aircraft do.
Note how much the wings are bent upward when the glider is airborne. This is because aircrat structures have to be very light, hence they are more flexible than ground based structures.
A hang glider is a glider with a flexible wing, made of fabric. It usually is just a delta wing with no tailplane or control surfaces.
The pilot controls his glider by shifting his weight.
On its return journey the NASA Space Shuttle behaves like a very high speed glider once it enters the earth's atmosphere.
At sometime during this phase the speed of the shuttle becomes so great (Mach numbers greater than about 25) that the heat generated by frictin with the air causes temperatures high enough for the surrounding air molecules to start dissociating into atoms and for chemical reactions among them to start taking place. This speed regime is known as hypersonic.