When you look at some of the “rat rods” at The Big Cruise and Car show, you wonder “was that too dangerous to even test?”

An article in Popular Mechanics recalls the explosion of a small nuclear reactor in the Russian Arctic last summer. According to the limited release by the Russian military, the explosion, which took seven lives and caused a spike in radioactivity in the area, was caused by “isotopic sources of fuel on a liquid propulsion unit.”

The evidence points to the development of the Burevestnik, a proposed nuclear-powered cruise missile. If perfected, it would have nearly unlimited range, flying longer and lower than conventional weapons, and changing the game in the reactivated Cold War.

This type of weapon, nicknamed “Skyfall,” is nothing new to the U.S. military. The Air Force developed a similar device in the ‘50s. Ours was called the Supersonic Low Altitude Missile or SLAM. Referred to as “the most dangerous nuke ever made, and possibly the last,” The Big Stick, as it was nicknamed, used a conventional rocket for take off, then converted to nuclear ram jet power cruising silently for days at 1,000 feet or less, under enemy radar, at a speed of Mach 3.5. The supersonic shock wave alone would wreak havoc throughout its path but would also selectively deliver each of its 26 hydrogen bombs en route. Once out of bombs, it would assume a suicide mission, showering the destination in radioactive debris.