Hypersonics for the foreseeable future is the domain of space access and hypersonic flight. A hypersonic vehicle encounters an aero-thermodynamic environment characterized by strong shocks and high temperatures, and the flow in the hypersonic regime behaves quite differently from that at supersonic Mach numbers (Bertin in Hypersonic Aerothermodynamics. Washington DC, 1994; Park in Nonequilibrium Hypersonic Aerothermodynamics, Wiley, New York, 1989; Anderson in Hypersonic and High Temperature Gas Dynamics. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1989).