Project Pluto

The question about AA nuclear tipped missiles reminded me of another project during the cold war. Project Pluto was to be a nuclear powered ramject cruise missile that would be able to fly Mach 3+ at sealevel while firing off nuclear missiles at targets. As a bonus, the shockwave and radiation it emitted while flying would do even more damages. It got as far as the reactor development stage which worked before it was canceled for obvious reasons

merkle.com...

merkle.com...

Try this
www.merkle.com...

you left out "www" and no need for the "/" after pluto

[edit on 28-6-2004 by drunk]

www.designation-systems.net...

Its just amazing that anyone thought that it was a viable concept. I would love to go out the Jackass flats were they tested the Tory reactors, but it not part of the DOE tour

Heh was just about to post a new topic on this but when I tried to post it it said there was already a topic. Is that a new feature and if so Here is what I found.

www.boingboing.net...
[S]ometimes [it's] easy to forget that the era also produced truly horrifying Cold War schemes like Project Pluto: a low-altitude cruise missile, powered by an atomic ramjet that carried multiple hydrogen bombs and puked out chunks of radioactive debris, killing everyone along its flightpath.

This is a horrid weapon and I for one am glad one was never built...hopefully... It might be usefull in space though, it would just have to be built in space so the risks to human life will be minimal.

[edit on 11-1-2005 by sardion2000]

What ever happened to nuke spaceflight propulsion??...I remebr soemthing about the orion project...

Originally posted by Daedalus3
What ever happened to nuke spaceflight propulsion??...I remebr soemthing about the orion project...

www.mediamatic.net...

hello i am new to ats.... anyways i think that idea was kool, but we prolly lacked the intelligence at the time (no offence to america) I give this thread a

Very impressive weapon.

yeah i know very impressive! I'd like to blow iraq right out of the ground right now

I started a thread on this yesterday evening (I should have used the ATS search facility first -- yeah I know -- next time I will.) I see that there has already been a lot of great discussion on the SLAM weapon system and Project Pluto. I want to add my comments here.

#

I think that Pluto was among the most evil weapon systems ever conceived of by humanity.

Last night, while I was trying to fall to sleep, I couldn’t rid myself of the idea of dozens of flying Chernobyls, meandering across the cities and suburbs in aerial figure eights, burning everything in their path, dumping highly radioactive fallout everywhere.

And this continues on for hours – days – weeks – months.

I picture this: the target city is evacuated. You will never be able to return. You watch the inexorable progression of events from a distance. The missiles sweep lazily over the empty city, day in – day out – a vast framework of sonic booms and scorched earth. What can stop it?

The military tries to shoot these horrific weapons down, but they are rarely successful. The Pluto devices are flying at 500 feet above ground, and at four times the speed of sound. The military is additionally encumbered because everything has been poisoned – difficult to setup and launch SAMs – you have to try to shoot these missiles down with jet fighters, working in the highly radioactive wake of these missiles.

Eventually, close to the end of their life cycle, each missile unloads ten 1 Megaton hydrogen bombs in a different sector of the city, ejecting the weapon upward, so that the low-flying missiles have time to escape the resulting nuclear blast. Then, completely expended, the missiles crash – one by one. The city is completely contaminated with the wreckage of hot nuclear reactors.

The biosphere will take centuries to recover.

#

Yet with all of that grimness– there is something so fascinating with this project from a technical perspective. The specifications for these missiles are mind-blowing. They can go around the planet four full times without need for refueling. They travel at close to a mile per second. The nuclear reactor propulsion system provides 500 Megawatts power output – half the power output of Hoover Dam, in a package smaller than a locomotive engine! What genius!

It is amazing that all of this was conceived and tested back in the 1960’s. What is comparable in this new millennium?

You can visit my new thread here. However, this particular thread has a lot more cool info, so perhaps this will resurrect a discussion of this remarkable and horrific weapon system.

I just cannot resist. The recent discussions about a Russian Project Pluto hearken back to my very first created thread here on ATS!!!!!!!!