WI: Nuclear propulsion rockets

[Luciano]

I just found out about Project Orion. So... Could it be done? Could we have it by avoiding the partial test ban treaty? With a POD in the 60s, how far in the space race could we be today?

More importantly, wouldn't it be too expensive? Why would the US/USSR wish to engage in such a pharaonic project?

 

[Timmy811]

Sure it could be done, NERVA passed all it's tests.

How far could we be? This far

 

[Delta Force]

Do you mean nuclear thermal rockets or Orion style atomic pogo sticks? The partial test ban treaty doesn't ban nuclear reactors in space, just nuclear weapons. Nuclear thermal rockets are still researched by NASA (and probably Russia) in the present day, we just don't test fire them anymore.

 

[Gray Antarctica]

Orion style atomic pogo sticks

For some reason, that's a hilarious way to put it.

 

[Luciano]

Do you mean nuclear thermal rockets or Orion style atomic pogo sticks? The partial test ban treaty doesn't ban nuclear reactors in space, just nuclear weapons. Nuclear thermal rockets are still researched by NASA (and probably Russia) in the present day, we just don't test fire them anymore.

Well, i was thinking on the "orion pogo sticks"...
What's the matter about atomic bombs in space? How would the radiation affect us?

Sure it could be done, NERVA passed all it's tests.

How far could we be? This far

-poster-

Whoa! Damn, why space exploration must be so expensive?

 

[Timmy811]

If NASA had passed on the shuttle and kept on working with Satrun Vs while they continued to develop NERVA we could probably have been to Europa by now without changing NASA's budget. The shuttle was ridiculously expensive and relatively useless.

 

[corditeman]

Amen to that...

...We needed a good orbital launch system (Big Dumb Booster) with a nuke upper stage and chemical fuelled landers.

With that combination, the Solar System's your mollusc...

 

[katchen]

That would have meant really cracking down hard on antiwar and antinuclear protesters during the 1970s and 1980s. And when I say hard I mean the kind of anti-terrorism laws we have today. Things like indicting them for support of terrorism for organizing the kinds of demonstrations that shut down Shoreham and Seabrook nuclear reactors. Things like pulling federal funds from universities that did not require prior military service of all male incoming freshmen while the Vietnam War was going on. Things like requiring all who contract with the US government to fire anyone with a child participating in an antiwar or antinuclear protest. In other words, McCarthy Era style blacklisting.
If the government had made opposition to nuclear energy and weapons tantamount to support for America's enemies and made that support have economic consequences all through the 80s, there would have been no coherent opposition to nuclear power or to Project Nerva or any aspect of the Space Program. The US would be on Mars and probably to the Asteroids, Mercury and perhaps the moons of Jupiter by now. The US would also be as unfree in the 70s and 80s as it is today.

 

[Archibald]

You could have the Reykjavik proposal of banning all nuclear weapons go forward in 1986, then someone suggesting "how about using all those nuclear bombs instead of destroying them ?" - let's build that Orion...

 

[Timmy811]

That would have meant really cracking down hard on antiwar and antinuclear protesters during the 1970s and 1980s. And when I say hard I mean the kind of anti-terrorism laws we have today.

...or they could just ignore the protestors. I don't see why they would need to do anything like you argued for. The last successful protests were over Civil Rights and Vietnam, anti-nuclear activism in this country has never approached anywhere near their success.

 

[The Oncoming Storm]

I think you've got to prevent or limit to a small scale America's involvement in Vietnam. Without that emotive issue there won't be all the associated social upheaval which began making people suspicious of Government and there won't be the same pressure on the budget. You also need to prevent the Apollo 1 fire so that NASA's budget doesn't get slashed as punishment, finally keepTom Paine with his hopelessly extravagant plans away from the Administer's seat, have a James Fletcher type hard nosed realist who knows how to work Congress in charge and maybe NERVA begins flights in the mid 1970's.