http://www.quilt.com/Orion/orion.html
This is quite facinating stuff. Round trips to Saturn in three years in spaceships massing 4,000 tons!
Of course the political ramifications are not too good.
I just finished the book Dyson's son wrote, and I highly recommend it; great read!
I know nothing at all about nuke drives but if it helps convert the worlds deadly arsenals into exploration devices then I say do it! :P
I still think the quantum transference ideas are the coolest so far ... sending a ship to XYZ location and then using quantum physics to send over structures and people via entanglement ... but it's obviously a long way off ...
If he had enough energy to accelerate at 1 g an entire trip, we could make it to Andromeda galaxy in about 20 years. That's an interesting thought.
[quote author=Evil Honkey Kenshi link=board=14;threadid=4685;start=0#46729 date=1030088795]
If he had enough energy to accelerate at 1 g an entire trip, we could make it to Andromeda galaxy in about 20 years. That's an interesting thought.
[/quote]
That's 20 years ship time.
A big, second generation Orion powered by H bombs could make it to Alpha Centauri in 150 years. Which is still impressive.
[quote author=cga link=board=14;threadid=4685;start=0#46798 date=1030122036]
[quote author=Evil Honkey Kenshi link=board=14;threadid=4685;start=0#46729 date=1030088795]
If he had enough energy to accelerate at 1 g an entire trip, we could make it to Andromeda galaxy in about 20 years. That's an interesting thought.
[/quote]
That's 20 years ship time.
A big, second generation Orion powered by H bombs could make it to Alpha Centauri in 150 years. Which is still impressive.
[/quote]
Hrmm, one would think you would loose a lot of steering when powered by nukes seeing as we blast one off and the drift for a good while(as I understand it). I don't see it was a means of getting somewhere quick right now, I think it's simply to dangerous... Plus where do we safely store all the nukes we need for the round trip?
I don't think it's feasable.
During the anti-Communist paranoia of the '50's, experiments were conducted to see if it was practical to buid a nuclear-powered bomber; it was thought that it would be the ultimate deterant; a fleet of bombers always in the air, fully loaded with atomic bombs. There are records that trace the development of this thing, I used to have a link to a website about it. Perhaps a Google search if someone's interested. The most alarming aspect was that a B-36 was flying around with a functioning nuclear reactor on board. The plane flew for several years in the mid '50's.
Wow, Thanks for all the info.
Lots to read there.
[quote author=Lovechild link=board=14;threadid=4685;start=0#46802 date=1030123427]
[quote author=cga link=board=14;threadid=4685;start=0#46798 date=1030122036]
[quote author=Evil Honkey Kenshi link=board=14;threadid=4685;start=0#46729 date=1030088795]
If he had enough energy to accelerate at 1 g an entire trip, we could make it to Andromeda galaxy in about 20 years. That's an interesting thought.
[/quote]
That's 20 years ship time.
A big, second generation Orion powered by H bombs could make it to Alpha Centauri in 150 years. Which is still impressive.
[/quote]
Hrmm, one would think you would loose a lot of steering when powered by nukes seeing as we blast one off and the drift for a good while(as I understand it). I don't see it was a means of getting somewhere quick right now, I think it's simply to dangerous... Plus where do we safely store all the nukes we need for the round trip?
I don't think it's feasable.
[/quote]
Well, it is feasable and most of the technical details were worked out back in the '50s. From the unclassified stuff I have looked at, it could be built today.
Of course we should not build one if it is to be surface launched do to the fallout issues. back in the 1950s, when the US and Soviets were exploding hundreds of bombs a year, the fallout was not an issue. Dyson had figured it would contribute less than 1% to the total fallout of the combined US/Soviet atmospheric tests.
It is a very interesting project, never the less. At one point, they were trying to build a clean atom bomb- one that would produce a one kiloton explosion with no fallout. That turned out to be hard to do, but probably not impossible. Most of the people involed quit, however, when they realized that if they did invent a clean bomb, people would be much more likely to use them as weapons.
Okay cga I guess you have a project for the weekend.
[quote author=Lovechild link=board=14;threadid=4685;start=0#46802 date=1030123427]
Hrmm, one would think you would loose a lot of steering when powered by nukes seeing as we blast one off and the drift for a good while(as I understand it). I don't see it was a means of getting somewhere quick right now, I think it's simply to dangerous... Plus where do we safely store all the nukes we need for the round trip?
I don't think it's feasable.
[/quote]
What do you think people from late world war 2 would have said if you told them the same thing dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki would become a preferred method of producing electric power?
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