Project Orion not cancelled

(Note: This is NOT ASB because the Orion Project was being planned for a time, and has actually been proven possible).

Project Orion, the project started in the 50s and 60s to come up with a idea to get to the planet saturn by 1970. The plan? Use a shield at the end of a space craft (think of it as a big bowl), which would absorb the impact of nuclear explosions, sending the space craft launching into space. Hyptothetically, the more nukes, the more energy. It'd be a quick way to travel.


But the project was cancelled.

But what if it wasn't?

One of the reasons it was cancled was who wants a rocket full of nucler bombs flying over ther country .

No, the nuclear bombs would have been detonated on the ground, most likely in a desert.

Another big problem would be finding test pilots for the program. Try to imagine telling USAF or USN pilots that you intend to place then on top of a device which is essentially a nuclear bomb, our most powerful weapon in our arsenal, and you plan on having them sit on top of a detonation. Just remember Challenger (1/29/1986) and you can guess how resistant astronauts would be to launch.

On the international level, try explaining to the Soviet Union that the nuclear weapons that you intend to produce, with the exact same yield, are going to be used solely for peaceful purposes. You can kiss the 1962 Nonproliferation Treaty goodbye, and the subsequent arms agreements. So try to imagine laer on nations like Egypt, Israel, Iran, Iraq, South Africa, Brazil, and Argentina openly wielding nuclear weapons by 1975.

I think this would require ASBs who get rid of the deadly radiation in nuclear bombs, project orion could have worked in some ways however due to others it would not have been allowed.

what would be more realistic would be a comprise between the politicians who didn't want to continue the program because of evironmental concerns and those who wanted to continue the project by first building a space station to launch the Orion ships from. Of course the space station alone would be quite a feat in enginering, but its not impossible.

LDoc said:

what would be more realistic would be a comprise between the politicians who didn't want to continue the program because of evironmental concerns and those who wanted to continue the project by first building a space station to launch the Orion ships from. Of course the space station alone would be quite a feat in enginering, but its not impossible.

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Or, alternatively, have a base on the Moon which constructs/assembles the Orion ships & then they are launched from the Moon to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn or wherever.

Ian had an essay about the Orion Project, but it doesn't seem to want to load for me. There were several problems with it, though there were various other propulsion systems such as Nerva (nuclear reactor used to heat the propellant, such as hydrogen). Also, these projects weren't the same type as Apollo, with a clear mission and goal. It was a project to develop a propulsion system.

That said, the method that seems the best to me (a complete layman in this field) would be a ship with a Nerva launch system, which avoids the fallout of Orion, which would then switch over to the higher-yield Orion system once in space.

Kinda makes me glad we've got a Republican promoting Space Exploration right now, cuz the Democrats don't have the balls to screw around with Nuclear Propulsion. (but lets not argue about that, lets argue about Orion )

DominusNovus said:

Ian had an essay about the Orion Project, but it doesn't seem to want to load for me. There were several problems with it, though there were various other propulsion systems such as Nerva (nuclear reactor used to heat the propellant, such as hydrogen). Also, these projects weren't the same type as Apollo, with a clear mission and goal. It was a project to develop a propulsion system.

That said, the method that seems the best to me (a complete layman in this field) would be a ship with a Nerva launch system, which avoids the fallout of Orion, which would then switch over to the higher-yield Orion system once in space.

Kinda makes me glad we've got a Republican promoting Space Exploration right now, cuz the Democrats don't have the balls to screw around with Nuclear Propulsion. (but lets not argue about that, lets argue about Orion )

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If you or others are interested in what was actually being done on nuclear space propulsion, the Federation of American Scientists website has an entire section devoted to it here http://www.fas.org/nuke/space/index.html It's very interesting reading.

He re's an good Timeline Here= http://www.changingthetimes.co.uk/samples/29thAPRIL/happy_birthday.htm

The problem witht the ATL on Changingthetimes is that it ignores the damage all of those nucleare explosions would do the evironment and politcal pressure that was against the continuation of the Orion project. Maybe if JFK had made a maned space station the primary mission, with the launch of a Orion craft from it next, the politicians would have agreed and the environmental feffects negated.

Orion radiation pollution

Orion produces very little pollution because it uses very low yield bombs. They aren't big, honking, citykilling bombs because you aren't trying to put cities into orbit. The principle problem with Orion is that to smooth out the impulses you have to fire off about 2,000 ten ton fission yield bombs, only equivalent to a 20 kiloton bomb in pollution. The problem was that it would be very expensive using the old fashioned gas diffusion plant enriched uranium at about ten million dollars a bomb. It would have been about the same thing as unilateral nuclear disarmament.
Now with the efficient chip controlled centrifuges it would not be nearly so expensive. About the cost of one Space Shuttle launch, with about 1,000 times the payload. Then we could use that payload to build a Kingsbury-Arnold type spaceport in orbit that would magnetically accelerate a rocket plane from any airport from the minor fuel cost of flying straight up (2 KpS) to the next 8 KpS to acchieve orbital velocity. It would reduce the cost of a ticket to space to about the cost of a ticket to Australia.

Whatever the merits, adn to be honest i have doubts, Orion would breach the atmospheric test ban treaty. Also, the PR aspect would suck - for some reason people have a serious negative image on all things nuclear, correctly in some aspects, luddite in others.

For propulsion in Space, perhaps, but even then I can imagine some pressure groups would bemoan the nuclear contamination of the cosmos.

Low Yield bomb or not, every "pulse" used by an Orion craft would release 1-5 kilograms of plutonium into the atmosphere. Definitly not a good idea. High yield bombs add a "fusion" part which leaves relativly low fallout.
There is also the matter of EMP once Orion leaves the atmosphere.
The relativly low radioactivity and fallout numbers that were originally published were based on a bomb type never build.
As much as I would like so see such starships, they are probably not to be. Now a Nerva-derived drive-that could work out.

Any one know how the [pproposed]nuclear aircraft was propelled. whe could use it as a first stage to lift the orion craft to high attiude.

DuQuense said:

Any one know how the [pproposed]nuclear aircraft was propelled. whe could use it as a first stage to lift the orion craft to high attiude.

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See the link here to the Federation of American Scientists web page http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/anp.htm In an earlier posting I also placed a link about the NERVA nuclear space rocket engine.