Sometimes you find just what you wanted just a little bit late. This happened with the most recent issue of Aerospace Projects Review; it had a big article on the Project Pluto nuclear ramjet cruise missile, with some discussion of early designs including a few lines on a reported North American study from 1947 describing nuclear rockets and ramjets. When the article was published, the North American study was unavailable, and was thought to be likely to be a vague mathematical treatise. However, not long after publishing I came across and photocopied/scanned a copy of that very report. Far from being vague, it was fairly massive and contains detailed engineering schematics of a Mach 3 nuclear ramjet cruise missile, its liquid rocket booster, and what is essentially an enlarged V-2 with a nuclear rocket, capable not only of serving as an ICBM, but also capable of sending a payload onto an interplanetary trajectory.
The next issue of APR will have an update article describing these.
3 Responses to “Nuclear ramjet: 1947”
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hell yeah, another Cool edition of eAPR
already eAPR V2N1 fantasic in deep look on Project Pluto !
This 1947 Ramjet is a very unique design of chemical-nuclear ICBM
Any chance of a look at the “nuclear V2”? This would be just like all those 1950s magazine illustrations! What a subject for a flying scale model!
Grif
The Nuclear V-2 will also appear in the next issue of APR.