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<blockquote data-quote="Orionblamblam" data-source="post: 343317" data-attributes="member: 90">Sheesh. I turn my back for five minutes...Rocket powered aircraft can of course attain Mach 8. But *attaining* Mach 8 is insufficient for strategic range recon systems. If you want an &quot;operational&quot;system you need to either:1: Cruise at Mach 8, which a rocket system cannot do. Only an airbreather theoretically could, and a Mach 8 airbreather that can survive is so far undemonstrated.2: Attain *greater* than Mach 8, so that you can either skip across the upper atmosphere for strategically valid range (probably meaning something in the range of Mach 12-16), or get close to Mach 25 so you can do a suborbital exoatmospheric hop all the way around, or go straight to orbit.If you want a global range rocket powered vehicle, you're probably best off going straight to SSTO. Getting *close* to orbital is almost as hard, but it leaves you screaming through the atmosphere for an extended period.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Orionblamblam, post: 343317, member: 90"] Sheesh. I turn my back for five minutes... Rocket powered aircraft can of course attain Mach 8. But *attaining* Mach 8 is insufficient for strategic range recon systems. If you want an "operational"system you need to either: 1: Cruise at Mach 8, which a rocket system cannot do. Only an airbreather theoretically could, and a Mach 8 airbreather that can survive is so far undemonstrated. 2: Attain *greater* than Mach 8, so that you can either skip across the upper atmosphere for strategically valid range (probably meaning something in the range of Mach 12-16), or get close to Mach 25 so you can do a suborbital exoatmospheric hop all the way around, or go straight to orbit. If you want a global range rocket powered vehicle, you're probably best off going straight to SSTO. Getting *close* to orbital is almost as hard, but it leaves you screaming through the atmosphere for an extended period. [/QUOTE]

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