New Project Orion images and diagrams

Just published in the latest issue of Aerospace Projects Review...

A collection of early 4000-ton vehicle concepts and subscale test models...


The "Putt Putt" flight test model:



A later 4000-ton vehicle design:




A simulation of the propellant (vaporized tungsten blasted by A-bomb) just before impacting the Orion pusher plate:




Lots more in the actual article in APR.

Just so people don't get confused, Project Orion was a study of nuclear-pulse propulsion done in the 1960s.

Don't get it confused with the current Orion spacecraft, which is the crew module for the manned space program that will take over the Space Shuttle.

[edit on 23-1-2008 by nataylor]