An idea occurred to me. The scramjet needs to be accelerated to Mach 5, where it can take over and accelerate potentially near orbital velocity. The idea was to put one of these on a Skylon, and have the Skylon accelerate up to Mach 5, and then let this thing take over. It would go as fast as it can until the Skylon can take over again and proceed to orbit.
The advantage sought would be to minimize oxygen. The Skylon would be airbreathing up to Mach 5, and the scramjet would be airbreathing up to Mach 17, say. The Skylon would then only have to accelerate up from Mach 17 to Mach 25 in rocket mode. It may even be possible to accelerate using the scramjet all the way to Mach 24. Then you would only need a little more acceleration to reach orbital velocity.
Now, if you were to add a nuclear thermal capability to it, it wouldn't need oxygen at all. That would mean six engines total and a freakin' huge hydrogen tank.
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