why didn't this go ahead?
It would be just as dangerous to the world than it would be to its intended target.
Unacceptable collateral damage during a time of relative peace.
>>29336488
as much as I wanted it to be real, here's why;
it's fucking massive and launching it would turn the area where it was launched from into a wasteland.
granted in a full nuclear exchange, who gives a fuck, but if it was used tactically;
>destroys everything it comes across
>kills its own crew
>fucking massive so good luck transporting it
>expensive as fuck
>complicated and a bitch to maintain
I would like to see a nuclear ramjet missile today, however. that would be great.
>>29336488
ICBMs.
>>29336488
>why didn't this go ahead?
>>29336488
An intentional de-escalation, and the fact that it was bat-shit insane in the first place.
>>29336542
It had no crew. remote guidance ftw
>>29336588
by crew I meant the guys that launched it, should've been more clear.
in that same vein, this thing would leave a swath of destruction in its path, and given how missiles are targeted, it would produce a lot of friendly fire.
>>29336560
also this
>>29336542
How big was it?
I thought it was unmanned.
And yes, seeing what they could do with the concept today would be interesting.
>>29336670
it was about the size of a standard rail flatcar.
by crew, I mean the guys that launched it.
it had no silo and no attached kind of shielded place to stay, it was a mobile, rail launched system.
and of course, it being an unshielded reactor and had a dozen H-bombs with minimal skin, the radiation was unreal.
>>29336696
So around 90 feet?
>>29336638
Wouldn't have killed the launch crew as plans called for it to be launched with conventional rockets.
>>29336717
about 75-80 feet long and 8 or so feet wide at the widest point.
so yeah, she was a big fucker.
>>29336542
It would've been launched by conventional rockets m8
It was pure madness. The very fact that this was ever taken seriously speaks volumes about the lunacy of the joint chiefs of staff that ran the military during the cold war.
>sub 100ft operating ceiling
>hypersonic
>spews radioactive poison as it follows an automated course for weeks
>if the shockwave and radiation spewing out of it didn't render whatever it flew over inhabitable, the h-bombs would
>not standard nukes, H-BOMBS
And this thing is like 40 years old. Think of the dark shit we could(have) created today.
>>29336985
Oh right, I almost forgot. When it eventually crashed, the reactor it carried would melt down into something similar to the elephant's foot in the bottom of Chernobyl, only bigger and not shielded by thousands of tons of concrete. Just sitting in a field rotting the earth for thousands of years.
>>29336488
impossible to test over your own territory and thus impossible to verify it'll actually work in combat
>>29337045
>>29336985
W-why would anyone ever want this doomjet?
Who designed it?
Who demanded to have it designed?
Who saved us from this monstrosity?
This is beyond Dr. Strangelove
>The proposed use for nuclear-powered ramjets would be to power a cruise missile, called SLAM, for Supersonic Low Altitude Missile. In order to reach ramjet speed, it would be launched from the ground by a cluster of conventional rocket boosters. Once it reached cruising altitude and was far away from populated areas, the nuclear reactor would be made critical. Since nuclear power gave it almost unlimited range, the missile could cruise in circles over the ocean until ordered "down to the deck" for its supersonic dash to targets in the Soviet Union. The SLAM as proposed would carry a payload of many nuclear weapons to be dropped on multiple targets, making the cruise missile into an unmanned bomber. After delivering all its warheads, the missile could then spend weeks flying over populated areas at low altitudes, causing tremendous ground damage with its shock wave. When it finally lost enough power to fly, and crash-landed, the engine would have a good chance of spewing deadly radiation for months to come.
I have never heard of a more horrible and colossally terrifying concept for any weapon, ever.
"Yes, we want you to develop a horrible screaming doomsday device that's capable of committing atrocities for weeks at a time, of course, it must also carry a payload of WMDs, and we don't care about shielding so let it spew radiation unhindered." - a James Bond villain or something
>>29336638
>by crew I meant the guys that launched it, should've been more clear.
When has any launch facility launched a rocket except from a safe distance?
I mean, even if it were atomic at liftoff (which it wasn't), do you really think the operators would have been so pants-on-head retarded that they wouldn't take precautions?
>>29336488
The year is 1969
>be me
>Pluto missile crew
>red telephone rings
>"its go time"
>me and my fellow crew members start praying as we prepare to unleash the Dragon Dildo of WMDs
>we start the reactor,immediately 2 of my brothers faint due to radiation.
>commence launch sequence
>the Rockets ignite sending the missile to destroy red commies
>last memory was seeing someone getting assraped by the rocket exauhst.
>the war is won.
>>29338710
>>29338825
I can't speak for those who ran the show during the cold war. All I can do is assume the fear of annihilation that permeated both the USSR and USA combined with the greatest up-arming of modern history lead to these sorts of monstrosities. What I fear the most, however, is the fact that this is de-classified. Common knowledge among those who would look to educate themselves. If this is what we could feasibly pull off in the 60s and 70s, I fear ICBMs might be one of the more tame evils of our modern time. Things we are not, and will not be privy to for decades, if not forever.
To that effect, I find all the shitposting about railguns, anti-ship missiles and other common topics here quaint. Almost heartwarming in a weird sort of way.
>>29339521
Look up Fractional Orbital Bombardment.
>>29339521
>If this is what we could feasibly pull off in the 60s and 70s, I fear ICBMs might be one of the more tame evils of our modern time.
I doubt we've evolved greater physical destructiveness than the nuke - all the really evil classified stuff is in applications of psychology and sociology.
>>29339623
Oh, that's lovely.
Besides cost, one of the reasons that it was decided to scrap the program was the prospect that the Russians would find out.
Our scientist literally said "we don't want to make this doomsday device because we're worried what the Reds will develop in response."
That's fucking terrifying.
>>29339663
No, get creative with me for a moment. Think of the delicate nature of the global power grid, our water supplies, roads and infrastructure. Mass communication and the proliferation of the internet. Everyone and everything is connected by extremely delicate systems that at this point in time the majority of modern society can't fathom existing without. I'm not saying what you're suggesting isn't as likely as it is spooky, but consider all the treaty and limitations we have imposed on the nuclear capacities of various countries. All the time and money and man power poured into R&D.
>>29339727
Another key point. This thing is just what we created. What kinds of evil do you think the Russians can and have created in a similar ilk?
>>29339521
>All I can do is assume the fear of annihilation that permeated both the USSR and USA combined with the greatest up-arming of modern history lead to these sorts of monstrosities.
Its also what lead to cancelling that particular monstrosity. They knew how crazy it was and worried that if the soviets saw something that obscenely destructive, they would panic and start the war or worse, develop their own.
is there like a video that shows how this weapon system would had worked?
>>29339623
>Fractional Orbital Bombardment
fuuuuuuuuuugg
>>29339521
>Things we are not, and will not be privy to for decades, if not forever.
To be honest I doubt they've found much worse, probably just variants on scary things we've had since WW1.
Unless you're scared of being targeted individually, in which case modern technology is infinitely scarier. A radiation-spewer that'd kill the entire continental US is scary, but perhaps a bomb that can take out your house and only your house is scarier from a psychological point of view.
On a tangent, I consider the social-networking/internet advertising chain the scariest development of modern technology, though obviously it's not /k/ at all. My mind is much better equipped to calm itself against the probability of nuclear warfare than against the idea of peacetime erosion of things I hold dear like privacy, driven by economic forces that cannot be stopped at gunpoint.
Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles.
The SLBM made the ICBM, strategic bomber, heavy interceptor, nuclear cruise missile, nuclear artillery cannon, etc etc; obsolete.
>>29340229
SLBM is only one part of the nuclear triad. Only countries that can't afford the other two parts or are run by hippies have only SLBM's.
>>29339727
Also, there's the development itself.
>Test Flight 1
>Reactor melts down on launch pad.
>Irradiates entire test facility. Designers and engineers all die. Project set back by years due to death of knowledge base.
>Spreads radiation throughout the continent for months until a containment structure is built
>Groundwater contaminated. Entire state of Arizona needs to be evacuated.
>100 mile exclusion zone created
>Cleanup costs thousands of lives
>Snorks and Bloodsuckers sighted in the ruins
>Test Flight 2 rescheduled
>>29341773
This could've paid off though.
>Soviets attempt to build their own in an attempt to counter the US's terror weapon
>Naturally, it must be bigger and better than the US version
>And obviously, significantly more radioactive.
>Through various CPSU political manoeuvres, the top brass of the USSR end up scheduled to watch the test flight as a demonstration of the advanced state of Soviet technology at the Baikonur Cosmodrome
>After a speech from the premier about this glorious leap forward towards world communism, chief designer Sergei Korolev presses the engine start button.
>What happened next is not known, however as a result of the events that transpired that day the entire super-continent of Afro-Eurasia is no longer believed to harbor human life.
>As far away as Hawaii, Deinococcus radiodurans have been found dead as a result of radiation poisoning.
>The primary phase of the cold war is ended in full with the fall of the Soviet Union, de-facto end to the partition of Germany and Korea, African regional politicking, the Arab-Israeli conflicts, etc.
>Without Soviet aid and with Castro last seen on a flight to Moscow, Cuba looks set to abandon Communism any day now.
>Thanks to the massive reduction in threat level, President Kennedy announces to a buoyant crowd (all wearing Level-A hazmat suits, naturally.) in San Francisco that the United States is able to relax their military spending, in particular abandoning project pluto, yielding a massive peace dividend.
>Re-election all but guaranteed with the announcement of a large scale government funding program to ensure every building in the country has thick lead walls by 2020, along with a stamp-issuing program to ensure poor families are able to obtain lead paint for their walls too.
>>29336488
we might still get to see nuclear powered ramjets, NASA has considered using them to liberate, err, I mean explore jupiter
http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/library/meetings/annual/jun02/510Maise.pdf
>>29338710
>>29336985
>pure madness
>W-why
Fucking peacedoves. Do you know why wars are still fought? Why young men in remote countries think its glorious to die for ideals they only half comprehend? Because war has tried so hard to become more humane.
If you want peace, war needs to be so horrific its inconceivable. We are sort of doing that now with drones and smart munitions basically being silver bullets of guaranteed death. Still, during the cold war this would have been a good asset to keep in our boomers.
I digress, the real loss though, is in the scientific community. We could have used nuclear ramjets to explore the atmospheres of jupiter, saturn, any gas giant and even Venus.
>>29343755
>We could have used nuclear ramjets to explore the atmospheres of jupiter, saturn, any gas giant and even Venus.
Why bother when we could use them to bring those atmospheric conditions to earth?
