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Is there a reason that there isn't a stage 0 to rockets that takes advantage of these properties?


A rocket on a typical orbital launch profile spends less than 60 seconds in air dense enough for jet engines to have good performance, so there is little to gain.

Pegasus is an orbital rocket launched from an aircraft, but it doesn't exactly impress with performance or cost-effectiveness. Just doesn't make much sense to operate a huge aircraft and design your system around it just to improve on the least important 10% of the flight.




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