#SLAM missile

A long ink cutaway drawing on cream vellum showing a missile-shaped ramjet split open lengthwise, its inlet cone at left, a hexagonal ceramic reactor core with its section-cut face washed in ochre orange sitting where a combustor would go, and a nozzle at right, with a smaller unfinished pencil sketch of the core face in the corner.

Project Pluto: A Nuclear Ramjet That Worked, and Was Grounded Anyway

Project Pluto swapped a ramjet's fuel-burning combustor for an unshielded nuclear reactor core, and the substitution ran successfully on a test stand from 1961 to 1964. The engine worked; its mission had already been overtaken by ballistic missiles.

By Brecht Corbeel · August 26, 2026 · 7 min read

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