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posted by Woods on Thursday April 24 2014, @03:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the more-explosions-is-more-better dept.

In the 1950s, rocket scientists dreamed of atomic-powered spaceships. Now these far-fetched designs might help a new generation explore the cosmos. Project Orion has to be the most audacious, dangerous and downright absurd space programme ever funded by the US taxpayer. This 1950s design involved exploding nuclear bombs behind a spacecraft the size of the Empire State Building to propel it through space. The Orion's engine would generate enormous amounts of energy and with it lethal doses of radiation. Plans suggested the spacecraft could take off from Earth and travel to Mars and back in just three months. The quickest flight using conventional rockets and the right planetary alignment is 18 months.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by lx on Thursday April 24 2014, @03:35PM

    by lx (1915) on Thursday April 24 2014, @03:35PM (#35608)

    ...and raise you project Starfish Prime [wikipedia.org]

    Basically, setting off nuclear explosions in orbit near the Earth tends to fry satellites which leads to a fucked up situation.

    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 24 2014, @04:02PM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday April 24 2014, @04:02PM (#35627)

      There was some sci-fi show a few years ago that was about a nuclear-powered interstellar ship, with the crew using VR to keep from getting too bored. The show only lasted for the pilot episode, but the end of the episode showed the nuclear propulsion. The effect you speak of was easily avoided: they used conventional propulsion (presumably, or maybe it was ion propulsion or something) to get far away from Earth. Once they were a healthy distance away and had done all their checks, then they fired up the nuclear drive.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by MozeeToby on Thursday April 24 2014, @04:25PM

        by MozeeToby (1118) on Thursday April 24 2014, @04:25PM (#35638)

        The whole point of the Orion drive was to put an obscene amount of material into space with a single launch. The full size version would have been the size of a small city and could have lifted hundreds of millions of tons of material. And in theory it could have been built with technology from the '60s. Saying "just use conventional propulsion until you're far away from the planet" misses the point, the Orion drive is the only propulsion we have that even comes close to being powerful enough to lift that mass into orbit.

        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 24 2014, @04:35PM

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday April 24 2014, @04:35PM (#35643)

          Well yeah, nuclear propulsion is a bad idea for lifting material off the Earth's surface if you're worried about radioactive contamination. But that doesn't mean it's totally useless; it's perfectly suitable for deep-space propulsion, since there's no point in worrying about contamination out there (deep space already is filled with cosmic radiation anyway).

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Thursday April 24 2014, @04:52PM

      by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Thursday April 24 2014, @04:52PM (#35657) Journal

      Well what they are talking about isn't powering the ship with boom booms but instead using a reactor to either create fusion or fission to stream particles out the back for thrust.

      --
      ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday April 24 2014, @05:21PM

        by frojack (1554) on Thursday April 24 2014, @05:21PM (#35675) Journal

        Well what they are talking about isn't powering the ship with boom booms but instead using a reactor to either create fusion or fission to stream particles out the back for thrust.

        What "They" are you referring to? Project Orion was indeed about explosion powered engines.

        (This is what happens when everyone drives to work in a Internal Combustion powered car: They start thinking like petrol-heads. You see this thinking being transported to Fusion projects at the National Ignition Facility even today).

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Thursday April 24 2014, @10:32PM

          by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Thursday April 24 2014, @10:32PM (#35821) Journal

          Uhhh...TFA is talking about the next gen nuclear ships, NONE of which are powered by boom booms, the ONLY reason the article talks about Orion is it was the first idea to ever get beyond bullshit stage but none of the new designs, absolutely zero, use boom booms.

          --
          ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Thursday April 24 2014, @03:40PM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Thursday April 24 2014, @03:40PM (#35616) Journal

    Anathem, Neal Stephenson

    I wasn't crazy about this book at first listen (I heart audiobooks) -- but I've listened to it five or six times through in its entirety, and various parts even more than that. It isn't my most favorite NS book, but it is for some reason the one I've listened to the most (I think it just feels comfortable and comforting) .

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by forsythe on Thursday April 24 2014, @03:48PM

    by forsythe (831) on Thursday April 24 2014, @03:48PM (#35620)

    Orion-style spacecraft play an interesting role in Footfall [wikipedia.org]. I'm not sure how much of the depiction was based on scientific work of the day and how much was based on having a cool story, but my disbelief remained suspended.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by MozeeToby on Thursday April 24 2014, @04:43PM

      by MozeeToby (1118) on Thursday April 24 2014, @04:43PM (#35648)

      Their depiction was plausible, though the timeline was a bit unbelievable in my opinion (what was it like 6 months from start of development to launch?). Made a bit more believable in that the ship only had to function for a few days, was implied to be falling apart, and could have more mass (and therefore more redundancy) than any spaceship in human history. Even the launch from the ground was originally how it was planned back in the 60s. They ignored the issue of creating huge radiation belts around the earth though...

      Footfall is one of the best alien invasion stories ever written, they actually took the time to come up with plausible explanations for all the things that drive me crazy in alien invasion stories (like motive, relatively low tech aliens, and the actual measures humans would go through to protect themselves).

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by fishybell on Thursday April 24 2014, @04:20PM

    by fishybell (3156) on Thursday April 24 2014, @04:20PM (#35635)

    The problems with Project Orion were engineering problems. That's not to state that they weren't large (really, huge), but the FUD of "oh noes! nuculer weapons!" is just that, FUD. The science/math behind turning the energy of the nuclear explosion into velocity was well thought out. The idea that it would launched from the surface or orbit is where the problem of fallout comes from. If the bombs didn't start flying until it was well beyond the earth's magnetosphere there would be essentially no problems.

    I personally prefer the idea of a nuclear-powered charged particle stream as described in TFA, but for its time, Project Orion was the best contender for long-distance, high-speed travel.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MozeeToby on Thursday April 24 2014, @06:58PM

      by MozeeToby (1118) on Thursday April 24 2014, @06:58PM (#35725)

      The problem is that the largest point in favor of an Orion drive was it's ability to launch ridiculous amounts of material into orbit and beyond. The largest version they had drawn up was capable of launching 8,000,000 tons into orbit, equivalent to more than 2,000 launches of the largest rocket humanity has ever built. The mid-range version would call for at least 2 Saturn V launches just to ferry up the bombs to power it. And of course would require hundreds more launches to bring the rest of the vehicle up and then you'd have to assemble it in orbit. The numbers just don't work out unless you're launching it from the ground. The scale of an Orion vehicle is just too far beyond our chemical rockets it to be feasible.

      You can eliminate a large amount of the fallout of a ground launch by using a huge amount of conventional explosives to get it off the ground. Once you're air bursting instead of detonating at ground level the long term contamination gets much less serious. You still have to worry about the magnetosphere, but the actual deaths from an Orion launch would not be significant.

  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Theophrastus on Thursday April 24 2014, @04:49PM

    by Theophrastus (4044) on Thursday April 24 2014, @04:49PM (#35653)

    There was a "Space 1999" plot which always struck me worthy and vaguely germane to discussions of "atomic" space-craft, (ol' Johnny Byrne could adapt to any screwy show set-up). The Queller Drive [wikipedia.org] is a space thrust system which is so powerful it wipes out any life in its wake. So when a probe equipped with this system returns home it has on its tail (at a safe distance) the avenging force of the alien culture it incidentally wiped out on its robotic mission of discovery. ((spoiler: eventually 'our heros' end up using it one last time to destroy the avenging aliens; and everyone is sad))

    • (Score: 2) by hamsterdan on Thursday April 24 2014, @07:44PM

      by hamsterdan (2829) on Thursday April 24 2014, @07:44PM (#35746)

      I *love* that series. The Eagles are one of the most realistic spacecraft . Too bad season 2 went to crap (save for Catherine Schell's eye candy)

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 24 2014, @04:52PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 24 2014, @04:52PM (#35656)
  • (Score: 2) by Covalent on Thursday April 24 2014, @05:06PM

    by Covalent (43) on Thursday April 24 2014, @05:06PM (#35666) Journal

    http://www.wired.com/2014/04/radiation-risk-iss-ma rs/ [wired.com]

    THIS is the radiation you should be worried about. The high-energy iron nuclei whizzing through space at relativistic speeds are far more concerning than then fusion rocket exhaust you'll be flying away from.

    That said, getting to where you're going more quickly reduces radiation exposure, so faster = better.

    --
    You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
  • (Score: 5, Funny) by geb on Thursday April 24 2014, @05:40PM

    by geb (529) on Thursday April 24 2014, @05:40PM (#35690)

    "BBC Worldwide (International Site) - We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes."

    Well, thank you BBC.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by KineticLensman on Thursday April 24 2014, @07:51PM

      by KineticLensman (3762) on Thursday April 24 2014, @07:51PM (#35752)

      Simple way to access articles such as this...

      Go to Google Translate
      Select Arabic (or similar) as the 'from' Language
      Paste the URL into the source box
      Hit Translate :-)

  • (Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Friday April 25 2014, @01:26AM

    by Nobuddy (1626) on Friday April 25 2014, @01:26AM (#35888)

    "God was knocking, and he wanted in BAD."