Noble seems to take the Apollo approach to raise the level of engineering for his country. (btw,according to Aldrin, returning to the moon could do the same for
sustainable engineering, if done right)
As for Breedlove's (Fossett's) craft: I don't immediately see a problem with it. It appears that both Breedlove's and Fossett's craft would have the inlet behind the bow shock, thus getting extra compression. Just by the looks of it of course, I didn't do any calculations. Thrust SSC didn't have this for supersonic velocities in the range Bloodhound is aiming at (again, by the looks of it), but then again, it was mainly subsonic, in which case the inlet position may very well be enough backwards, so that makes sense. Anyway, it's something easily spotted even in an analytic shock pattern simulator. So we can safely assume they did that part correct on all three craft
.
What was the problem you saw, mugs?
The starfighter engine remains a popular one for land speed records. A US based team is using a starfighter flown by Yeager for their car. "Clip the wings" is more or less their car concept
.