Project Orion: a re-imagining by Rhys Taylor

[LouistheHedgehog]

It doesn't look very aerodynamic from underneath.

[CestLaGuerreMPInc]

Anyone know what those outstretched arms are (are for?) that deploy at 1:09 of the animation?

[Sabelkatten]

Spin gravity crew capsules, presumably.

[Atymeson]

@CestLaGuerreMPInc Those are the habitat sections being suspended on tethers so that they can be spun for artificial gravity. having them so far out allows the spin rate to be lower and minimize nausea.

[cocodrilll]

I think they àre doomed

[MMSchlenk]

Well...And how getting back to earth?

[buckfushes]

cool!

[hellomate639]

Um. I'll take a space elevator instead. Seems easier once we have the nanotubes.

Space elevator: go up into space, send a load off with VASIMR descendant thrusters, get there in a month with an absolutely massive spacecraft and drop a second elevator so that you don't have to burn through the atmosphere.

In fact, even if we DON'T build an elevator here on earth, we should use that in our Mars mission because its so much safer.

[saddogmobile]

-the loss of active nuclear weapons happened already 32 times "that we know of"

6 were never were recovered, i sleep soundly

- negative, sub optimum explosion at best the fizzle of even one would not cause multiple sympathetic detonations, read up trigger

- the nature of this method means they would be notified months in advance and have observer status

- these are not proximity armed they have to be programed in advance to ever possibly detonate

[twk373]

The blastoff scene was impossible. Chemical rockets require mass ratios in excess of 20; what we saw was a ratio less than 2. Were chemical rockets that powerful, we wouldn't need Orion in the first place. Indeed, the point of Orion is that it can put astronomical payloads into orbit. Of course, the fact that it can do that means it can send those astronomical payloads to other planets.

[saddogmobile]

(artistic license) same as the sound

three ways to launch this sucker, cannon, toss, or tee-up.

Make a hole detonate a bomb in the hole with the ship as a plug at top.

Use adequate chemical thrust to get the ship off the ground so that a bomb can be airburst under it.

suspend or surmount the ship on tower/s with a bomb between it and the ground.

[aoeaoae]

"three ways to launch" you're missing the point; it is SO MASSIVE that the energy needed is TOO GREAT for anything BUT nuclear.

[aoeaoae]

actually, 20:1 is for orbital speed; all we need here is altitude even with zero speed, to make nuke detonations safe(r).

But what about the EMP danger? Maybe it is safer to detonate CLOSER to the ground, because of EMP?

[saddogmobile]

E.M.P. can be accounted foe and the effects of blasts minimized with planning and slection of remote sites. of the "three ways to launch" two use nuclear directly with the toss up only getting the ship off the ground and into position for an air-burst so a rocket apogee of a few kilometers not orbital is needed.

[nqdp6]

@saddogmobile nuclear explosions don't generate EMPs. The way the explosion interacts with Earth's upper atmosphere and magnetic field generate EMPs. So if you're in space, EMPs are no big deal.

[G777GUN]

@aoeaoae

Hi yaaaaaa,

Not closer to the ground.

[rocketshipstud]

project spaceguard usaf has covert one already to go for killer asteroid/meteor defense(study project icarus senario) /space is already radioactive!/future moonbase will build these systemships out of lunar titanium and thorium...then at ceres dwarf planet base controls riches of asteroid belt!...ad astra!

[saddogmobile]

possibly, as an insurance policy US nukes saving a nation/continent/mankind, could buy a lot of love. we only need a hole and a dense impacter that can take a few blasts to knock one out of the sky.

[masterj345]

i like the idea of using liquid rockets to get it out of hte atmosphere and only do the nuclear explosions in space.

thats a damn fine idea i wonder if humans will ever devise a more efficient spacecraft then orion (the old orion not the new one) and if they do what propulsion it will have.

i have this feeling that orion (old orion) is the answer to how humans could travel to other solar systems and that rockets alone simply will never be efficient enough.

[saddogmobile]

I'm hopeful that sustained nuclear fusion is is possible, and that we'll be able to make a more efficient rocket that way. the old orion is still there if we need it badly enough.

[aoeaoae]

I HATE the idea of using liquid rockets to get it out of hte atmosphere.

Chemical rockets are nowhere near capable of doing that, that's the whole point of Project Orion in the first place.

Forget the anti-nuclear propaganda brainwashing. The heavier the Orion, the smaller its footprint PER KG PAYLOAD LIFTED, much smaller than that of chemical rocketry.

[saddogmobile]

there is a post about this on the nextbigfuture blog, we need not use rockets to lift it at all, see "Verne cannon" and karl schroeder nailed the environmental impact question by proving that you can "start dirty to go green"

[youtert]

Pogo stick to the stars

[hispanicuscorpus]

Can anyone tell me witch software is use to design this video,i want to post an idea that does not required a thermonuclear engine to put a big payload in orbit,,i need feedback.

[2771]

Don't even bother to try, for big payloads this is the best we can do in the next hundred years or so. chemical rockets can't do it, and from an environmental prospective chemical rockets pollute more then ORION would.

[TopGunMan]

wouldnt riding a multimillion degree fireball kilometers wide be a little more dramatic than this...

[thebigguns51807]

Like chea freeking going to heaven on a fireball of you know!

[loperspest]

remember these are 'only' kiloton explosives. Its not like they are putting out megaton missile type warheads.

[saddogmobile]

I don't know exactly how big the warhead needs to be but the idea is that your "fuel" is the bomb and your reaction mass is a hypervelocity cloud of vaporized foam/tungstun which impacts on a pusher-plate. unlike "ion engines" T>1 so it can lift off Earth.

[loperspest]

I found this book called "project orion the true story of the atomic spaceship" by george dyson, son of the dyson of dyson sphere fame.

His dad also helped with orion. it is very informitive, thats how I know about yealds. Commman plastic was a proposed "fuel" because it was A] more opaque to to radiation and b] dead cheap. Also, to severally reduce plate ablation they proposed spraying it before each pulse with a thin spray of oil.

[2771]

one kiloton or less for a mars mission

[subach]

Greenpeace would flip.

[thebigguns51807]

That would be funny!!

[2771]

Good!

[georgepool1976]

It's a stupid idea. First you're going to let a nuclear arsenal go through our atmosphere, and then you are going to set it off while landing on a planet that we may want to inhabit?

I'd suggest that we develop better ion engines before we start playing with that. History has proven that playing with nuclear energy is still not safe.

[saddogmobile]

better to use nukes for peace, also I don't advocate goiong to Mars or living there, I'd much rather live in a habitat.

Nuclear energy is safe (it runs the stars) human stupidity is real dangerous

[2771]

mars has far more radiation then those bombs will produce. however landing the whole ship is a bad idea. a lander is far better esp, if we power the lander with a NERVA type system.

[aoeaoae]

NERVA system needs a magnitude more propellant mass than Orion type nuclear pulse propultion.

[vernii]

Mars is totally unsuitable for long term habitation, it has only 1/3 of Earth's gravity, and a very weak magnetic field. Orbital habitats would be far superior.

[theinsane102]

I prefer to live on a stable planet, not a 500 megaton atomic bomb!

[aoeaoae]

Orbital habitats are unsustainable, only asteroidal are - orbiting the Sun, not Earth, mining from the asteroids.

But that's far harder than mining from below your feet - on Mars or the Moon - and it's cheaper to dig subsurface structures than build them up. And what about radiation? You have to have TONS of shielding, have you thought about that? What about oxygen?

[saddogmobile]

essentially nothing is sustainible long term, the land owners all say "they ain't making more land" and i say "yet" so value will be in location.

habitats are not ground based and are made of materials that need be processed from raw, the tailings are shielding heck big enough and the air is shielding

Ice is common as dirt, on some planets it is dirt, add energy to water and you get oxygen and re-mass.

[aoeaoae]

it is undoubtedly cheaper to dig subsurface then haul materials into orbit and build there. Hence asteroids are much more sustainable, slash that, plausible, than pure orbital habitats, and planets even more plausible. Build pyramidal habitats if population explodes. Or make that asteroid-belt habitats and there you go.

Just what Tsiolkovsky described.

If you say humanity out-sizes available planetary surface asteroids will have to be it, or planets themselves might eventuly get thinned out

[seneca67]

Noise would be haerd by the crew. steel struts, shoclaborbers and reaction mass propellent conduct sound. The shock waves would probably do a number on may delicuit constitution. Perhaps thats why Taylor and Dyson spoke of installing barber chairs in the crew area. lol

[saddogmobile]

the 'sound' is the least of your worries with a nuclear bomb going off near you, at this level sound isn't sound it's a force of destruction.

[seneca67]

yes, i agree. Much time and effort was placed into the question of shock absorption when General Atomic was working on Orion. I remember reading that the engineers themselves actually hoped to be exploring the moons of Saturn by 75' with this technology. I think a version of this might be practical if done with inertial confinement fusion rather than bombs. If water would be used, one might collect hydrogen and oxygen from the process for the excursion modules.

[seneca67]

Yes, i mention excursion modules, or landers which would depend on chemical thrust, because i just can't imagine a nuclear thermal pulse craft managing a "gentle" landing without continuous smooth thrust. Which then leads to the question minimizing the mass. Apollo did this with a lander, the concept holds weight, so to speak, lol was that a pun?

[Energyfield]

I doubt that the ram jet explosions would sound like

that in space. I also believe that we can utilize

"sun power" to propel vehicles in a vacuum.

[saddogmobile]

A) this is not a ramjet, this is a small nuke going off under your spaceship.

B) there is no sound in space(artists take liberties)

C) Remote Fusion "sun power" is good but runs into 4pi*r^2, onboard fusion via QED "Bussard" engines look possible.

[saddogmobile]

sorry about removing the other comment reply is right next to remove, QED has all qualities of nuke engines without the Rad' drawbacks