What was Project Pluto?
Project Pluto was a SLAM, or Supersonic Low-Altitude Missile, an audacious Cold War project designed to make a nuclear-powered under-the-radar ballistic missile. The research was conducted by scientists from the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, predecessor of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, while testing took place at the Nevada Test Site, where the majority of nuclear tests during the era took place. The project ran from 1957 to 1964. It was cancelled when improvements in radar technology made its low-flying qualities obsolete, and intercontinental ballistic missile technology turned out to be easier to develop than expected. Project Pluto’s signature component was a 513 megawatt unshielded nuclear reactor which heated air sucked in from the front of the missile, and fired it out the back. This arrangement is called a ramjet, or an air-breathing missile. The Pluto missile was designed to travel Mach 3 at treetop level. Its nuclear reactor would have emitted lethal radiation
