Here's the small X43 Scramjet attached to the nose of a Pegasus rocket, hung under a B-52. I think. You can see the plan - drop it high up, get really fast, then fire scramjet. The first one went a bit wrong and they blew it up, but by the third flight it had achieved just under Mach 10 (I think that's 1.8 miles per second). It faced the massive friction-generated temperature of 1900 degrees Celsius - they used carbon-carbon (space shuttle panel material) and water was circulated behind the leading edges to keep it from melting.
It's not just NASA - the Australians are really big on developing Scramjet engines. The University of Queensland Hyshot program (with international help) has reached Mach 7. I guess they want the potential London-Sydney flight times of 2 hours.
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