Orion project

I was watch a tv prograqm last night about the orion project that said that the US were secretly developing a nuclear bomb powered rocket which would be 1000's of times more powerfull and faster than chemical rockets (including what we got today). It would used many small nuclear bombs to blast it self into orbit and from there they had plans to send 100's of humans to mars and even send manned missions to jupiter and saturn!

Well it didnt come to pass because of worries about atmospheric fallout, and now the files are still top secret because they are worried the information could be used by terrorists.

What really annoyed me was a guy said it was the first time a MAJOR leap in human technology was repressed for political reasons! THIS IS WHATS STILL HAPPENING TODAY!

What do you all think about the orion project, and how it could have affected our presence in space? Bear in mind this thing was meant to carry vast payloads, 100's of times more than the space shuttle can!

Wouldnt that be a propelled rocket? If so how would they contain the radioactive fallout that would be a result?

The idea of using atomic bombs as propellar in space is not something new. There are many models including shute like sails and giant shields, but I guess they still need ways to do this safely. Good ideas though, but I still think gravity drives would be more useful, as they could actually stear in space using such technology, stop up completely, turn and head back home. I may be stupid, but wouldn't using an a-bomb be like hitting a nano size target with a bow and arrow at great distance? What if they missed the bullseye?

Blessings,
Mikromarius

Well.. I don't know that it was a "major leap in technology," there. More like a duck-waddle in the wrong directions. It was abandoned because it simply wasn't a usable design.

The idea (laughable but true) was to propel a rocket by setting off a nuclear explosion 200 miles behind it.

Some specifications:

The idea of an "atomic drive" was a science-fiction cliche by the 1930's, but it appears that Stanislaw Ulam and Frederick de Hoffman conducted the first serious investigation of atomic propulsion for space flight in 1944, while they were working on the Manhattan Project (2). During the quarter-century following World War II, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (replaced by the Department of Energy in 1974) worked with various federal agencies on a series of nuclear engine projects with names like Dumbo, Kiwi, and Pluto, culminating in NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) (3). Close to producing a flight prototype, NERVA was cancelled in 1972 (4). The basic idea behind all these engines was to heat a working fluid by pumping it through a nuclear reactor, then allowing it to expand through a nozzle to develop thrust. Although this sounds simple the engineering problems were horrendous. How good were these designs? A useful figure for comparing rocket engines is specific impulse (Isp), defined as pounds of thrust produced per pound of propellant consumed per second. The units of Isp are thus seconds. The best chemical rocket in service, the cryogenic hydrogen-oxygen engine, has an Isp of about 450 seconds (5). NERVA had an Isp roughly twice as great (6), a surprisingly small figure considering that nuclear fission fuel contains more than a million times as much energy per unit mass as chemical fuel. A major problem is that the reactor operates at a constant temperature, and this temperature must be less than the melting point of its structural materials, about 3000 K (7).

A number of designs were proposed in the late 1940's and 1950's to get around the temperature limitation and to exploit the enormous power of the atomic bomb, estimated to be on the order of 10 billion horsepower for a moderate-sized device (8). The Martin Company designed a nuclear pulse rocket engine with a "combustion chamber" 130 feet in diameter. Small atomic bombs with yields under 0.1 kiloton (a kiloton is the energy equivalent of 1000 tons of the high explosive TNT) would have been dropped into this chamber at a rate of about one per second (9); water would have been injected to serve as propellant. This design produced the relatively small Isp of 1150 seconds, and could have yielded a maximum velocity change for the vehicle of 26,000 feet/second. The vehicle would have been boosted to an altitude of 150 miles by chemical rockets, and the extra 8000 ft/sec or so thus provided would have allowed it to escape the Earth's gravity (10). The Lawrence Livermore Laboratory produced a similar although much smaller design called Helios at about the same time (11).

More about it can be found here....
www.islandone.org...

couldn't they harness the explosion of a A bomb or H bomb by using some kind of magnetic field just like with plasma. and then redirect the kenetic energie of explosion to the back end of the vecile. when the field is adjusted to match a the same as a spike noisle or an other rocketmounth.

We are still pretty far from being anywhere near able to control or contain a nuclear explosion.

Originally posted by MarkLuitzen
couldn't they harness the explosion of a A bomb or H bomb by using some kind of magnetic field just like with plasma. and then redirect the kenetic energie of explosion to the back end of the vecile. when the field is adjusted to match a the same as a spike noisle or an other rocketmounth.

I'm not an expert on this, but aren't you talking about fusion now? Fusion and fision are two diametrical oposite principles. Anyway, to make a magnetic field using today's technology to harness such a vast explosion as a nuclear bomb, I guess that the vehicle would become to darn big, so big, perhaps, that it could "eat up" the gained thrust in total mass of the vehicle. But again, I'm only guessing. I think they should rather focus on creating a working gravity drive and rather utilize existing mag. fields for "pulling and pushing" the vehicle to it's destination. The speeds one could reach would be unbelievable, probably even dangerous for humans. But for machines it would work I guess. Noone thinks that they would start building let's say a colony on Mars using humans. They would naturally use robots and machines to build basic structures, like water plant, air plant, energy plant etc.

Blessings,
Mikromarius

They have been talking about orion at NASA for years but they wont do nething about it, its to dangerous

Its to dangerous a theory to test

Originally posted by Byrd
Well.. I don't know that it was a "major leap in technology," there. More like a duck-waddle in the wrong directions. It was abandoned because it simply wasn't a usable design.

The idea (laughable but true) was to propel a rocket by setting off a nuclear explosion 200 miles behind it.

Some specifications:

The idea of an "atomic drive" was a science-fiction cliche by the 1930's, but it appears that Stanislaw Ulam and Frederick de Hoffman conducted the first serious investigation of atomic propulsion for space flight in 1944, while they were working on the Manhattan Project (2). During the quarter-century following World War II, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (replaced by the Department of Energy in 1974) worked with various federal agencies on a series of nuclear engine projects with names like Dumbo, Kiwi, and Pluto, culminating in NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) (3). Close to producing a flight prototype, NERVA was cancelled in 1972 (4). The basic idea behind all these engines was to heat a working fluid by pumping it through a nuclear reactor, then allowing it to expand through a nozzle to develop thrust. Although this sounds simple the engineering problems were horrendous. How good were these designs? A useful figure for comparing rocket engines is specific impulse (Isp), defined as pounds of thrust produced per pound of propellant consumed per second. The units of Isp are thus seconds. The best chemical rocket in service, the cryogenic hydrogen-oxygen engine, has an Isp of about 450 seconds (5). NERVA had an Isp roughly twice as great (6), a surprisingly small figure considering that nuclear fission fuel contains more than a million times as much energy per unit mass as chemical fuel. A major problem is that the reactor operates at a constant temperature, and this temperature must be less than the melting point of its structural materials, about 3000 K (7).

A number of designs were proposed in the late 1940's and 1950's to get around the temperature limitation and to exploit the enormous power of the atomic bomb, estimated to be on the order of 10 billion horsepower for a moderate-sized device (8). The Martin Company designed a nuclear pulse rocket engine with a "combustion chamber" 130 feet in diameter. Small atomic bombs with yields under 0.1 kiloton (a kiloton is the energy equivalent of 1000 tons of the high explosive TNT) would have been dropped into this chamber at a rate of about one per second (9); water would have been injected to serve as propellant. This design produced the relatively small Isp of 1150 seconds, and could have yielded a maximum velocity change for the vehicle of 26,000 feet/second. The vehicle would have been boosted to an altitude of 150 miles by chemical rockets, and the extra 8000 ft/sec or so thus provided would have allowed it to escape the Earth's gravity (10). The Lawrence Livermore Laboratory produced a similar although much smaller design called Helios at about the same time (11).

More about it can be found here....
www.islandone.org...

see I mean what this says I ones saw a program about interstellar travel they said that if they should use plasma they had to use magnetic force fields to contain it because of the high temperatures .

[Edited on 13-11-2003 by MarkLuitzen]

I believe the solution to creating an anti gravity device is in sound. If they could create a force field made up of mesmerising soundwaves, I believe they could divide rivers in two, make people walk on water, and even stop Earth rotation and take the Earth for a spin around the galaxy perhaps....

Blessings,
Mikromarius

Originally posted by mikromarius
Earth for a spin around the galaxy perhaps....

Blessings,
Mikromarius

I doubt they'd do that, issues with the sun and such. It might go crazy if not being supervised by our planet.

Anyway, I think our best bet for a new rocket is in antimatter. Granted its expensive, but it seems the most feasible. And we would be able to reach many places never dreamed of before, like the nearest star in only 45 years.

OK , did anyone in the UK see this program? It was on BBC2 2 days ago.

They had the actual orion scientists on it, the were talking about a mechansim for relising small nulcear weapons and detonating them a second or so later to create thrust, if you dont belive this would work in the atmosphere then i would say the showed a test model to president kennedy using conventional explosives..... It worked!!!! The air force wanted to develop it as a weapon, but kennedy thought it was the last thing the world needed in the worlds political climate at the time, so it was scraped. But the scientist say that even now they cant talk about the technoloogy produced, doeesnt this say anything to you????!!!!!!


Please excuse the spelling! I was drunk at the time of this post! still am i guess!


[Edited on 13-11-2003 by Kalistenics]

Instead of exploring the most hostile and not-made-for-humans place in the universe we should start allowing technology to open the human mind up to full capacity.

Who knows, we may not need a "rocket" to get where we want.

Excellent topic. I was wondering, are there any pictures of any prototypes or models available on the web??

Originally posted by MarkLuitzen

Originally posted by Byrd
Well.. I don't know that it was a "major leap in technology," there. More like a duck-waddle in the wrong directions. It was abandoned because it simply wasn't a usable design.

The idea (laughable but true) was to propel a rocket by setting off a nuclear explosion 200 miles behind it.

Some specifications:

The idea of an "atomic drive" was a science-fiction cliche by the 1930's, but it appears that Stanislaw Ulam and Frederick de Hoffman conducted the first serious investigation of atomic propulsion for space flight in 1944, while they were working on the Manhattan Project (2). During the quarter-century following World War II, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (replaced by the Department of Energy in 1974) worked with various federal agencies on a series of nuclear engine projects with names like Dumbo, Kiwi, and Pluto, culminating in NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) (3). Close to producing a flight prototype, NERVA was cancelled in 1972 (4). The basic idea behind all these engines was to heat a working fluid by pumping it through a nuclear reactor, then allowing it to expand through a nozzle to develop thrust. Although this sounds simple the engineering problems were horrendous. How good were these designs? A useful figure for comparing rocket engines is specific impulse (Isp), defined as pounds of thrust produced per pound of propellant consumed per second. The units of Isp are thus seconds. The best chemical rocket in service, the cryogenic hydrogen-oxygen engine, has an Isp of about 450 seconds (5). NERVA had an Isp roughly twice as great (6), a surprisingly small figure considering that nuclear fission fuel contains more than a million times as much energy per unit mass as chemical fuel. A major problem is that the reactor operates at a constant temperature, and this temperature must be less than the melting point of its structural materials, about 3000 K (7).

A number of designs were proposed in the late 1940's and 1950's to get around the temperature limitation and to exploit the enormous power of the atomic bomb, estimated to be on the order of 10 billion horsepower for a moderate-sized device (8). The Martin Company designed a nuclear pulse rocket engine with a "combustion chamber" 130 feet in diameter. Small atomic bombs with yields under 0.1 kiloton (a kiloton is the energy equivalent of 1000 tons of the high explosive TNT) would have been dropped into this chamber at a rate of about one per second (9); water would have been injected to serve as propellant. This design produced the relatively small Isp of 1150 seconds, and could have yielded a maximum velocity change for the vehicle of 26,000 feet/second. The vehicle would have been boosted to an altitude of 150 miles by chemical rockets, and the extra 8000 ft/sec or so thus provided would have allowed it to escape the Earth's gravity (10). The Lawrence Livermore Laboratory produced a similar although much smaller design called Helios at about the same time (11).

More about it can be found here....
www.islandone.org...

see I mean what this says I ones saw a program about interstellar travel they said that if they should use plasma they had to use magnetic force fields to contain it because of the high temperatures .

found a link which tells more.
www.aulis.com...

it would be a lot better if they used a nuclear reactor to power a directional negative magnetism(aka antigravity)

Hmm Atmospheric fallout would probably be a very bad thing, talk about raining fire from the skies quite literally. It was probably a smart idea they didnt use this, number one if there was an accident (and knowing how sloppy NASA can be at times) we arent just talking about the crews lives here but that of entire populations depending on the size of the nuclear device.

I agree, why waste our times trying to understand our universe, when we havent even begun to understand ourselves.

reply to post by daeldren


1) Stop saying stuff about this being bad for the atmosphere, that has nothing to do with this propulsion method. The ship wouldn't be permitted to light off any of it's charges until well away from the atmosphere, probably past the moon's orbit (which means you would STILL need a chemical rocket to get it safely away)

2) The real problem with this design is that it would have to have an enormous, very dense (lead or water, probably both in most designs) radiation shield to protect any crew and equipment onboard.
Coupled with the fact that only a tiny, tiny arc of the nuclear blast would be directed at the ship (nuclear blasts go in ALL directions so most of this force is WASTED) and the enormous amounts of HEAVY nuclear fuel you would have to carry (all fissile materials -transuranic elements- are heavier than lead) this design is just too inefficient and bloated to be considered for any duration of space flight.

3) Also, say you wanted to fly one of these to andromeda... any ship following along this route would be exposed to elevated radioactivity from ALL sides due to all the fission products the orion trails behind it. To keep your colonists alive you would either have to divert subsequent trips by thousands of miles or add even MORE shielding in the front and sides of the craft.

4) Upon arrival, you now have a dispersed stream of thousands of nuclear bomb fallout clouds moving at some ridiculous speed... RIGHT TOWARDS WHERE YOU JUST LANDED YOUR COLONY. Oops, all their hair falls out and they become mutants bent on destroying the earth #ers that screwed up their genes.

Antimatter is the closest we are now (with proven tech) to being able to do interstellar travel, and even that is very slow compared to sci-fi.

- Jason the asshole

reply to post by JamesMcMahn


Actually the theory is quite sound during the 1952 Operation Castle two graphite covered steel test spheres were placed near the castle bravo test device and both were recovered intact after detonation proving engineered objects could survive a nuclear blast.

A test similar to the castle bravo sphere test apparently occurred as an accidental side effect of a nuclear containment test called "Pascal B" conducted on 27 August 1957. The test's experimental designer Dr. Brownlee performed a highly approximate calculation that suggested that the low-yield nuclear explosive would accelerate the massive (900 kg) steel capping plate to six times escape velocity. The plate was never found, and Dr. Brownlee believes that the plate never left the atmosphere (for example it could have been vaporized by compression heating of the atmosphere due to its high speed). The calculated velocity was sufficiently interesting that the crew trained a high-speed camera on the plate, which unfortunately only appeared in one frame, but this nevertheless gave a very high lower bound for the speed.


Unfortunately the main problem for a launch from the surface of the Earth is nuclear fallout. Any explosions within the magnetosphere would carry fissionables back to earth unless the spaceship were launched from a polar region such as Antarctica. This would require enormous legal changes as the continent is presently an international wildlife preserve. Freeman Dyson, group leader on the project, estimated back in the '60s that with conventional nuclear weapons, that each launch would cause on average between 0.1 and 1 fatal cancers from the fallout. The United States Government concurred and decided that because of the danger to human life and the danger to electronic systems on the ground (from electromagnetic pulse) to shelve the project.

A one meter scaled model of the proposed Orion craft was tested using RDX (a chemical explosive) instead of nuclear weapons. This model was called "putt-putt" and it flew a controlled flight for 23 seconds to a height of 56 meters at Point Loma.


Source's: en.wikipedia.org...

See also en.wikipedia.org... a british design for a probe to Bernards star that would travel at 0.12C or 12% the speed of light

The Us navy also came up with an improved Daedalus design called project Longshot en.wikipedia.org...


(note I hate using wikipedia as a source but im in work so I cant access my proper reference sources and books on the subject)