Please mention you read about it in Innovation. Test firing of an air-breathing rocket at a small aerospace company in New York. The spacecraft would be completely reusable, take off and land at airport runways and be ready to fly again within days. An air-breathing rocket engine inhales atmospheric oxygen for about half the flight. Getting off the ground is the most expensive part of any mission.
Weight reduction decreases cost significantly.
Specially designed rockets boost the air-breathing engine's performance by 15 percent over conventional rockets at takeoff. When aircraft velocity reaches twice the speed of sound, the rockets are turned off, and the engine totally relies on atmospheric oxygen to burn the hydrogen fuel. As the vehicle's speed increases to about ten times the speed of sound, the rocket-powered system takes over to propel the vehicle into orbit. For more information, contact Uwe Hueter at Marshall Space Flight Center.