Re: Can't We call the early Atlas a SSTO?

On Jul 12, 10:00 pm, Pat Flannery <flan...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

There's no reason you can't make a fairly low priced ramjet, (or
possibly even a scramjet) and use it as a way to add velocity to a
ascending booster before it reaches an altitude where it won't operate
anymore.

Two vehicles that were designed from the start for low cost were the
Pegasus and Spaceship 1. They both used existing air-breathing first
stages. There are no existing hypersonic aircraft to work from, so we
will have to wait for the military to provide them, just as we did
with rockets and aircraft, and there seems to be more of a push for
reasonable ~ mach 5 aircraft rather than the more exotic ones. Even
countries like India are working on it.
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2007/07/11/215441/israel-helps-india-develop-scramjet-demonstrator.html

When hypersonic aircraft are available for other uses, they will be
used as launchers.

John Halpenny

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