Project SLAM / PLUTO

Fantastic news! ;)

Orionblamblam said:
Meh. You can't really make a nuclear powered version of a conventional vehicle without a *lot* of major changes.
Click to expand...
Possibly the reason it was cancelled (that, or the fact Pluto/SLAM was cancelled first)?
 
Just recently posted by the San Diego Air & Space Museum at YouTube - "The Big Stick," a late 50s (?) Convair company film about a nuclear powered cruise missile.

This appears to be Convair's proposal for the Supersonic Low Altitude Missile (SLAM) nuclear ramjet cruise missile program. I was aware of Vought's proposal, but this is the first I have seen/heard of Convair/General Dynamics'.

As per the film, the name "The Big Stick" for the concept came from the Air Research & Development Command studies that lead to SLAM/PLUTO.

Dimensions - 52 ft. long, 13 ft. wide (at the tail fins), 5 ft. in diameter, and an operational weight of 50,000 lbs. (approx.). To be boosted by a Minuteman first stage (58 sec. burn time/178,000 lbs. of thrust), then powered by a 55-inch diameter Marquardt nuclear ramjet. "High temperature steel" airframe, payload approximately 6,400 lbs., either in the form of a singular warhead, or eight (8) ballistically ejected 350 lbs. nuclear "bomblets", guidance provided by INS (est. 1 to 2 NM CEP) and/or TERCOM (est. 1/4 mile CEP), launched from fixed (bunkers/silos) or mobile bases (land train), high-altitude cruise/low-altitude penetration at Mach 3.5 +.

 
Last edited:
fantastic find
ca it be, this animation was made by Disney ?
they made allot of this work for Companies
 
Nuke engine

Found this Project Pluto entailed the design and testing of a nuclear ramjet engine (shown here) for low-flying, supersonic cruise missiles that could stay aloft for hours. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory designed and built two Tory II-A test reactors (adjacent photo) to demonstrate feasibility. A Tory II-C flight-engine prototype was also built. All six tests of the reactors were successful.
 

Attachments

  • Nuke engine.jpg
    Nuke engine.jpg
    195.3 KB · Views: 929
I absolutely love this piece of kit. It only demonstrates how far the US was willing to go to develop more and more elaborate methods of utterly demolishing the Communist threat back in those days. I mean, how much more insane can one get than by using a direct cycle nuclear ramjet that probably would have triggered a meltdown upon crashing once the payload was delivered? :eek:

Thanks for posting that video Boxman. It was quite informative!
 
I wonder how/where training with this weapon would have occurred? Afterall, no one would want this nuclear powered missile flying overhead nor impacting anywhere near them.
 
<shudder>The commentary states initial tests would have been made with chemical fuel. Training with a live reactor sounds *scary*. Nice find.</shudder>
 
Lovely promotional desk model of the Pluto missile from Vought Aeronautics.
One of these models was given to every potential Pluto customer.
 

Attachments

  • Vought Pluto (SLAM) 02.jpg
    Vought Pluto (SLAM) 02.jpg
    33.4 KB · Views: 651
Any papers on a variant of this modified as a Jupiter or Venus flyer?
 
sferrin said:
Re: Project SLAM

aemann said:
Another idea was to fly it up and down, like mowing the lawn, crushing everything unhardened in it's path.
Click to expand...

There was even a sci-fi movie out back then that had an alien spaceship (I think, it was a while ago) flying 4000 mph round and round the world destroying everything with shock wave and radiation. I remember they showed them firing a pair of Nike Ajaxs that missed and I think they eventually ended up nuking it. As I recall the ship looked like they ripped it off from the 30's Buck Rogers.
Click to expand...
The film was called "The lost missile".
 
Has it been revealed what the warheads would've been carried? I remember reading somewhere years ago that the planned warheads was the W28 in a suitable ballistic-casing.
 
Looks like just another classic fearmongering make believe cold war bogaboo concept to me. Ahh, simpler times...
 
Last edited:
Now, If I wanted to modify SLAM as a gas-giant hurricane hunter type deal…what might that look like?

I envision a very wide aerobrake disk with chutes and balloons as a slow descending asset—a big com-dish once the nuclear ramjet slides out.

Could you put radar/sensor blisters on it and they not be ripped off in flight?

I see this as a gas giant explorer.
 

Similar threads

Please donate to support the forum.

Back
Top Bottom