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What is the point of saving mass here? LOX is cheap, so it isn't the cost of the LOX. Does saving LOX make the vehicle cheaper? No... it increases the quantity of fuel needed, which (particularly if it's LH2) makes the empty vehicle much larger and more massive. This is doubly bad, since every last gram of that empty mass is taken to orbit, unlike the mass of LOX.

Minimizing fueled mass of the vehicle is a stupid thing to do. It's optimizing the wrong metric.

Scramjets also suffer from bad thrust/mass and thrust/$ ratios compared to rocket engines.

Overall scramjet launch vehicles are an example of pyrrhic engineering: even if one could make such a vehicle "work", no one would want it.

by goku12223 days ago|

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The point here is how it alleviates the problem of the tyranny of the rocket equation. But you seem to have made up your mind.

by pfdietz223 days ago|

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I'm looking at the issue deeply, not using the superficial reasoning you seem to be engaging in. This reminds me of "mark logic" where if you are promised pie in the sky you commit yourself to believing it even if it's a scam.

Scramjet launchers (and air breathing launchers in general) have been looked at extensively, for decades. They don't make any sense. The math just doesn't work. Here's an insightful post from the Old Usenet that illustrates the difficulty:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220131115058/http://www.island...

When reading that, remember that LOX is 20x the density of LH2 (or 17x the density of "slush hydrogen").

by pfdietz223 days ago|

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Another useful article by Henry Spencer on the subject:

"Rockets, not air-breathing planes, will be tomorrow's spaceships"

(New Scientist, 2009)

https://web.archive.org/web/20101017031109/https://www.newsc...