I'm trying to get a handle on aerodynamic heating. I'd like to be able
to answer questions like:

How fast could the space shuttle go at sea level to experience the same
heating as reentry (assuming same angle of attack)?

If you used a electromagnetic rail gun as a first stage for a rocket
launch, how fast could you have the rocket going when it left the rails
at sea level....how much faster could it go if the rail gun were at
15000 ft elevation?

Does anyone out there have any equations I can use to answer these
questions? The perfect equation would let me input altitude and it
would give me the fastest that a vehicle could travel at that altitude.
A more complicated but more useful equation would let me input
altitude and velocity and get out leading edge temperature. I assume
that both of these equations are impossible because the geometry and
construction of the vehicle would play a large part in the temperature.
Does anyone have suggestions for how I can proceed?

Here is what I have so far: From
http://www.e31.net/luftwiderstand_e.html I got the equation:

FAir = A/2 × Cd × D × v^2

FAir = force from drag (which I'm assuming is proportional to
aerodynamic heating

A and Cd = constants related to vehicle geometry and construction, so
I'll lump them together into one constant

D = density of air (which I can find from http://www.pdas.com/e2.htm)

v = velocity

Using this information I can't figure out anything about temperature,
but I can compare the performance of the same vehicle at two different
altitudes. For example if I assume my theoretical vehicle can go 1000
miles/hour at sea level without getting too hot, I can figure out how
fast it can go at 15000ft elevation without getting too hot.

Does anyone have any better way of calculating things that can get me
some actual temperatures? Also, I'm concerned with my assumption that
drag is proportional to heating. A pointy reentry vehicle would have
less drag than a blunt reentry vehicle...but they discovered long ago
that pointy things burn up on reentry.

But I'm not really interested in reentry speeds. I'm more interested
in speed around 2000mph, and elevations below regular commercial
airliners.

Thanks for any suggestions on how to proceed!