"Hot Rod" - Nuclear Orion spacecraft prototype

In 1959 this mock-up version of the Orion was launched helping prove the validity of the design.
1 Meter in diameter, weighing 105kg, it was not powered by nuclear blasts but by 1 kilogram balls of C4 explosive. Watch closely and you can see them come out the back.

It reached a height of 105meters.

Read more here:
http://www.google.com/search?q=hot+rod+orion

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Orion
• Project
• Space
• Atomic
• Nuclear
• Hot
• Rod
• HotRod
• Explosion
• C4
• Black
• Powder
• 1959
• Spacecraft

[stillustronic]

This is ridiculous, so they tested a bottle rocket with C4 explosives and it went up to the 30th floor of a skyscraper, WOW! You can't 'scale this up' with nuclear bombs for a manned or any spacecraft! Today's school system is in total disarray!

[roidroid]

@stillustronic You were taught about nuclear propulsion concepts in school?

[AvyScottandFlower]

The sad truth here is without the political difficulties this technology would have already been fully developed @second half of the 20th century. We would be all over our solar system by now!

[Membrane556]

This is the Orion nasa should be building.

[Membrane556]

@TheInternetizen

it really depends on the implementation.

An Orion would release less radiation then a typical surface nuclear test as individual bombs would be sub KT devices.

To equal one Tsar bomba you'd have to launch a lot of them.

Of course the radiation can be mitigated by providing a steel launch pad or putting it on top of a big chemical rocket and not using the Orion until well above the atmosphere.

[TheInternetizen]

@AvyScottandFlower More like we would have poisoned ourselves with radiation sickness before we developed anything meaningful.

[MarsMoonEuropa]

@TheMG2 Have you ever heard of Newton's Third Law of Motion?

I doubt it, you should look it up and you will see why rockets still work in space and why they can reach such great speeds.

[jetpoweredgriffin]

@vecaisvecis

No problem.

They wouldn't want to leave earth anyway,so then-

that way,they won't have to suffer from radiation poisoning,either!

Problem solved.

[jetpoweredgriffin]

@sicarius100

That;s a whole lot less explosive energy than all that useless high-altitude nuclear testing they just threw away.

They should have done some Orion testing then.

[AvyScottandFlower]

@ThePingasMightier

So, as you see, nuclear technology is absent in the one place it should have been developed many decades ago..

In space

[downix]

@ThePingasMightier Nuclear bombs can be clean, there's little incentive to make them so when they're to be used for blowing things up. For Orion, focused energy bombs, with all of the energy focused at the pressure plate, if the plate utilizes a radiation absorbing material (like depleted Uranium or lead) then there would be minimal radiation, as all of it would be absorbed by the plate.

[ThePingasMightier]

@AvyScottandFlower It's a propulsion system with wonderful potential, but I have concerns about radiation. (Not so much the EMP though.)

And yes, I'm studying this right now so I would really like a cited response if you have any ideas.