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I found it among photos I had saved from the web—basically while digging through the "dump" folders on my hard drive. The file creation date is December 2019. On the left is an enlarged, enhanced, and slightly colorized version of the black-and-white original shown on the right (which was a very small image). I ran a Google image search but found no matches (even though I obviously got it from somewhere online, possibly a Russian forum dedicated to nuclear weapons). AI initially identified it as the "Gemini" module for the Titan II, and then—after I enhanced and colorized the image—as the XMGM-134A Midgetman (though I checked, and the size is completely wrong for that).
What really floored me about this photo just now? It turns out I didn't just save this blurry image back then (I don't recall when or how); I actually labeled it: "Mk.6 warhead section for the Titan II missile, with a yield of 10 to 15 Mt." Wow! I have absolutely no memory of where or when I got it or why I labeled it that way! It might have been before I knew for a fact that the Titan II never carried anything more powerful than the 9 Mt W-53 warhead. I likely didn't connect the photo at the time to McNamara's 1962 statement about a super-powerful 30 Mt warhead for the Titan II—a connection people make now in light of plans to develop RIPPLE technology (articles on RIPPLE only started appearing in 2020). Otherwise, I would have remembered it! The photo does indeed look like an Mk.6-type warhead, but it’s clearly larger (or so it seems to me). So, what is it? Could it be what I suspect—work related to RIPPLR? Though that seems highly unlikely. Still, I decided to share it here and ask, just in case.