Delete comment from: Dark Roasted Blend
You've mixed up two concepts that aren't even contemporary.
The SLAM project got as far as a ground-based prototype reactor; google "Project Pluto". It worked. The concept is also applicable to rockets, and there are a goodly number of us who are irritated that irrationality triumphed.
SLAM's exhaust would not have been particularly radioactive, because it used air in a ramjet configuration, and there's nothing in air that gets highly radioactive, or stays radioactive for long. It was supposed to crash into its last target, using radiation as an area-denial weapon.
"Flying crowbar" is a later concept employing non-explosive objects "dropped" from orbit. It would result in what were effectively meteor strikes. The best configuration for the object is a rod, because even if the front burns up on re-entry the back part remains; thus the name.
May 4, 2011, 2:28:14 PM
Posted to Nuclear Everything!