Intro music.
Accelerating to speeds of nearly Mach 9.8, or 7,000 miles per hour,
NASA's supersonic combustion ramjet or scramjet, screamed into aviation history on November 16, 2004.
The X-43 broke the sound barrier and all aviation speed records traveling at almost 10 times the speed of sound.
Mated to a Pegasus booster rocket,
the X-43 was carried aloft to 40,000 feet strapped to the wing of a modified B-52, which is ironically NASA's oldest aircraft.
The B-52 released the booster after attaining altitude and the rocket ascended to 110,000 feet.
At altitude the unpiloted X-43 separated from the booster,
accelerated on scramjet power to a brief flight at nearly Mach 10.
NASA's X-43 technology could represent a major step forward for providing economic, faster and safer access to space.
The possibility also exists that scramjets could one day power a fleet of hypersonic airplanes,
capable of crossing a continent in less than an hour.