Patent ID: 7344111

Claim:
A reversible aerospace plane, comprising: an air intake at a first end of the aerospace plane; at least one heat exchanger disposed in the aerospace plane; an engine at a second end of the aerospace plane, wherein the aerospace plane is configured to accelerate in a first orientation and configured to glide and land in a second orientation, wherein the second orientation is substantially a reverse of the first orientation; wherein the at least one heat exchanger comprises: a first stage heat exchanger; a second stage heat exchanger; and a third stage heat exchanger, wherein the third stage heat exchanger is configured to use tanked liquid hydrogen as a coolant to condense at least a portion of an oxygen component of an incident air, wherein the second stage heat exchanger is configured to cool the incident air with the liquid oxygen from the third stage heat exchanger, and wherein the first stage heat exchanger is configured to cool the incident air using the hydrogen coolant from the third stage heat exchanger.