The project was called Supersonic Low-Altitude Missile or SLAM; the nuclear ramjet engine program was named Pluto. Run out of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Pluto produced two prototype ...

At the direction of Dr. Theodore Merkle, the Pluto project focused its research on the concept of a nuclear ramjet engine. On paper, it’s an ingeniously simple idea: run air through an ...

In a nuclear ramjet the vehicle flies so fast the air entering the engine intake needs no compression and flows directly through the reactor core. Fission superheats and expands the air which ...

Mounted on top of a railroad car, it marked the world's first nuclear ramjet engine when it came to life for just a few seconds. Three years later, the U.S. tested the Tory II-C, which was able to ...

complementing its Triomphant-class submarines that are armed with M51 nuclear ballistic missiles. The ASMPA-R is a supersonic cruise missile powered by a kerosene-fueled ramjet engine, a ...

Ellie Cook is a Newsweek security and defense reporter based in London, U.K. Her work focuses largely on the Russia-Ukraine war, the U.S. military, weapons systems and emerging technology.

Two ramjet engines powered by a small nuclear reactor would propel the jet to its incredible speeds. It would additionally require the use of a cold-fusion nuclear reactor, which to date is still ...

Hafnium 179, a potential nuclear fuel that emits gamma rays instead of neutrons, may hold the key to nuclear rocket propulsion for space transportation that would be safer to operate than uranium ...

During a series of tests at the Notre Dame Turbomachinery Laboratory in Indiana, the company’s engine, called Chimera, switched between turbojet and ramjet power. It’s believed to be the first ...