The designs ran the gamut from short range solid propellant rockets through Mach 3 ramjets to intercontinental boost-glide vehicles. General Electric was also responsible for firing captured German V-2 rockets, training Army personnel in their use, and the Bumper project which created a two-stage vehicle using a V-2 and a WAC-Corporal. See individual entries for the Hermes A-1, Hermes A-3, Hermes B-1, and Hermes C.

The company planned to first build a prototype Micro Launcher system. This would fire 1.3 mm projectiles (barely visible to the naked eye) and demonstrate several new technologies, including the use of three pairs of supplemental gas injectors along the barrel (as used in the Oberth gun and V-3). The full-scale gun would be bored into a mountain in Alaska for launches into high-inclination orbits. The gun would have a muzzle velocity of 7 km/second and fire 5,000 kg projectiles. The payload would be 1.7 m in diameter and 9 m long. Following burn of the rocket motor aboard the projetile, a net payload of 3300 kg would be placed into low earth orbit.

It turned out that mastering the guidance and materials technology needed for a Mach 3 cruise air vehicle was actually more difficult than for a Mach 22 ballistic missile. In the end, the Redstone, Thor, Jupiter, and Atlas rockets were flying before their equivalent-range Navaho counterparts. However the Navaho program provided the engine technology that allowed the US to develop these ballistic missiles rapidly and catch up with the Russians. Navaho also developed chem-milling fuel tank fabrication techniques, inertial and stellar navigation, and a host of other technologies used in later space vehicles. It put North American Aviation, and its Rocketdyne Division, in a leading position that allowed them to capture the prime contracts for the X-15, Apollo, and Space Shuttle projects, thereby dominating American manned spaceflight for the next seventy years.