[SauronOfMordor]

I think this is supposed to dovetail with the SCAMjet technology the Air Force and NASA are working on. Going back to an article from 2003 on it:

Hypersonic aircraft are expected to surpass the abilities of today's supersonic planes by reaching speeds of Mach 7 or more, over seven times the speed of sound. Current efforts, such as NASA's X-43 program, are designed to use a supersonic combustion ramjet -- or scramjet -- to zoom through the air at up to Mach 10, about 7,381 miles (11,880 kilometers) per hour.

FALCON's requirements call for a hypersonic plane with a range of 9,000 nautical miles (16,668 kilometers) and the ability to fly heavy loads of ordinance or other payload to targets from its home airstrip somewhere in the continental United States.

"This system could become the bomber of the future," said DARPA spokeswoman Jan Walker of FALCON in an e-mail interview

The advantage of SCRAMjet technology over rockets is that the jet uses atmospheric oxygen, instead of carrying liquid oxygen. In a hydrogen/oxygen liquid fueled rocket, the liquid oxygen accounts for 88% of the fuel weight. Reducing fuel weight means more payload capacity

[P8riot]

I think this is supposed to dovetail with the SCAMjet technology the Air Force and NASA are working on.

SCAMjet? I hope that wasn't a freudian slip.