Patent ID: 8215589

Claim:
A reversible aerospace plane, comprising: an air intake at a first end of the aerospace plane; a compressor next to the first end of the aerospace plane for compressing the intake air; a turbine disposed next to the compressor for driving said compressor; a first heat exchanger disposed in the aerospace plane for cooling the compressed intake air to produce cooled compressed intake air; a second heat exchanger disposed in the aerospace plane for cooling the cooled compressed intake air; 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; a superheat shroud operably associated with said turbine for augmenting the performance of said turbine; wherein one of said first and second heat exchangers is configured to use tanked liquid hydrogen as a coolant to condense at least a portion of an oxygen component of an incident air.