Word: scramjets
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...apparent limitations dampened interest in further ramjet development work until late last year, when Marquardt Corp. scientists convincingly demonstrated a practical method of maintaining combustion in a supersonic flow of air. Using hydrogen, which has a low ignition temperature, burns rapidly and provides high thrust, they kept an experimental scramjet burning in air moving as fast as 7,000 m.p.h. By redesigning their engine's inlet to allow it to gulp air at supersonic speeds, they were also able to eliminate the excessive temperatures and pressures. And they proved that useful thrust could be produced at flight speeds...
...hydrogen fuel also promises to pay an extra dividend. To be kept in liquid form, it must be stored in refrigerated tanks at a temperature of - 423 °F. And since a plane moving at scramjet speeds will be seared by the heat of friction as it moves through the atmosphere, the frigid hydrogen will make an ideal coolant to be pumped through the skin of wings and fuselage before it is burned...
Kick into Orbit. Sure that an experimental scramjet plane can be produced within six years, the Air Force has established a Scramjet Technology Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton and has already begun awarding scramjet research contracts to aerospace companies...
...space application, the Air Force is thinking about a stubby-winged scramjet encircled by its own cylindrical engine. It would be carried to an altitude of about 125,000 ft. by a more conventional plane and released at a speed of 3,500 m.p.h. The scramjet would then accelerate under its own power to a speed of 15,000 m.p.h. and soar to a height of about 180,000 ft., beyond which there is not enough oxygen in the atmosphere to support combustion. At that altitude, a small hydrogen rocket motor would be used to kick the scramjet...
After delivering supplies to a space station, say, the scramjet would fire retrorockets, re-enter the atmosphere and fly back to earth. It would be capable of landing at any large airport with the aid of a turbojet engine, which would begin operating at lower speeds after the scramjet engine is shut down and bypassed. A 500,000-lb. scramjet might well be able to carry as much payload into orbit as a 4,000,000-lb. multistage rocket...