The "AUSTRALIAN MARKINGS" comment makes a lot of sense to me. I drew endless pictures of the Apollo rockets, the command module, the lander, and of various exotic planes and the ALL had Australian flags on them. Picture of an astronaut on the moon with a flag too. I don't think I was being nationalistic, I think it simply didn't occur to me to do otherwise. Those were the flags I saw every day.
Which I had forgotten until I recently walked through my Palo Alto neighbourhood and what did I see: some kids had drawn planes in chalk on the pavement -- with Aussie flags on them! Those old memories all came back in a rush.
(I was super excited when NASA was landing people (men) on the moon. I was only five when Apollo 11 landed but I feel like I remember it well -- probably I remember later landings).
Air breathing engines are better suited for long distance constant speed cruise than space flight, which is an acceleration mission to far higher speeds and mostly happening outside the atmosphere.
I don't think it's accurate to always mention spaceflight here.
It's a bit like saying your spreadsheet plugin that iterates rows with visual basic enabled more efficient big data. Will maybe work for those who don't know the field.
So far air breathers can produce thrust up to Mach 10, or 3 km/s, and most peter out much earlier (X-43 was Mach 7). A body stays in orbit if it goes horizontally 8 km/s, so it's a whole different ballgame.
Usually these hypersonic related flights consist of an ordinary rocket (not air breathing) boosting a tiny air breather model inlet for some kind of materials or cold flow test.
Which I had forgotten until I recently walked through my Palo Alto neighbourhood and what did I see: some kids had drawn planes in chalk on the pavement -- with Aussie flags on them! Those old memories all came back in a rush.
(I was super excited when NASA was landing people (men) on the moon. I was only five when Apollo 11 landed but I feel like I remember it well -- probably I remember later landings).