Before pressing on, Vladimir Putin would be well-advised to review some of the myriad problems that the United States’ own nuclear-powered cruise missile program, Project Pluto, experienced in the ...

According to a 1996 case filed with the U.S. Department of Labor, 18,681.5 kilograms of beryllium were used in Project Pluto to fabricate 500,000 beryllium and beryllium-uranium fuel elements.

The project was the Supersonic Low-Altitude Missile, or SLAM. And it was exactly what it sounded like. SIMON: Say we're standing in a field in Siberia when the Pluto SLAM passed overhead.