Mission To Mars Scifi Challenge

[Shpaget]

29 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

And Orions still matter here.

Laser induced fusion via portal means you no longer need a fission trigger. No more bombs needed.

 

Just fuel you can zap into fusion blasts to push you along.

In that case you don't need the pusher plate, and then it's no longer Orion.

[sevenperforce]

21 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

Orion will always be more energetic than a rocket, so it is more efficient at being a torchship.

Orion is very inefficient. It wastes most of the energy it carries.

If we had photon portals, no one would bother with lasers or induced fusion or anything like that. These portals are tungsten, after all, so they should be able to handle very high temperatures with ease. The equilibrium temperature for metal reaches about 1700 degrees C around a million miles from the sun, so a tungsten photon portal should be able to get significantly closer: up to around 730,000 miles from the sun, where the equilibrium temperature is just below tungsten's melting point. 

Insolation there will be 16,000 greater than it is at 1 AU, thanks to the inverse-squared law. Insolation at 1 AU is about 1.4 kilowatts per square meter, so the photon flux through the photon portals will be 19.6 square meters times 1.4 kilowatts per square meters times 16,000 for a total of 440 MW. 

[kerbiloid]

Orion is not propelled by booms, it's propelled by direct plasma jets, as it was explained for million times.

It's not enough to throw fuel and burn. It should have something else.

[Spacescifi]

14 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Orion is not propelled by booms, it's propelled by direct plasma jets, as it was explained for million times.

It's not enough to throw fuel and burn. It should have something else.

 

In atmosphere the shockwave air blast does give extra boost.

 

In space it is the plasma... which is the inverse of a rocket which throws plasma exhaust.

An Orion smashes itself with plasma to push along, so the fuel pellets are concentrated plasma blasts if high velocity, since the mass is vaporized anyway.

[kerbiloid]

1 minute ago, Spacescifi said:

In atmosphere the shockwave air blast does give extra boost.

It would give only extra damage.

And anyway the fuel pellets are no concentrated plasma blasts, they are just a source of energy spreading uniformly.

An Orion charge should have a director, it's not just a pellet.

Or the nozzle should form a direct jet from it electromagnetically (Z-pinch MiniMag Orion)

In any case, the AM has nothing to do there.