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Project Orion looked at using the detonation of nuclear bombs as a propulsion method back in the late 1950s.
Originally posted by infiniteobserverIn the movie they developed a new rocket that contains a nuclear reactor called Orion.
Ares does not use any kind of nuclear processes. It was a conventional hybrid solid-fuel first stage, liquid-fuel second stage rocket based on the design of the Space Shuttle solid rocket boosters.
NASA has been testing one such rocket already called Ares.
Orion is the name of the crew capsule. The overall program encompassing a return to the moon and a Mars mission was named Constellation.
One of it's main purposes is to make it easier for us to get to Mars...the name of that "Mars" mission is Orion.
No one knows what the mission would actually be referred to, as the Constellation Program was essentially canceled in 2010. The Ares rockets will not ever be completed. Parts of their design will go in to the development of a single heavy-launch system simply called the Space Launch System. The Orion capsule may survive and go on to be used on other rockets.
Once the Ares rocket couples with the Orion capsule the mission will be referred to simply as Orion.
The first stage of Ares I was a single nozzle, solid-fuel booster. The second stage would have been liquid fueled with a single J-2X engine. If you're talking about the larger Ares V, it would have used two solid rocket boosters and a first stage with 5 Space Shuttle Main Engine-derived engines. The second stage would have had a single J-2X engine.
The rocket from movie also has six burners that they use after the first stage rocket has been used, just like Ares.
The calculations have nailed down the orbit quite well. Elenin will not get any closer than 34,000,000 km to Earth (roughly a quarter of the distance between the Earth and Sun).
Fast forward a bit and we currently have a comet called Elenin on the way. It was discovered by a man named LEOnid ELEnin. As far as I know, the calculations are still being made to see how close it will come to Earth.
Leonid is also a popular male name in Russia.
Leonid is also the name of a meteor shower and where do most meteors come from? Well for the most part, from pieces of comets...
So if I die in a car wreck in the next few days its because I said too much or my fiance was driving