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RoverDude wants an Orion Drive?!

pincushionman

By pincushionman
in KSP1 Discussion

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RoverDude

RoverDude

Posted
Posted
Nice and as OP as I remember

http://i.imgur.com/oxMZaIq.png

yes, this is an pretty standard Orion burn, it used around 900 charges, yes payload was just 20 ton or something, I was also running at 30% trust as maximum.

Wonder how well the medusa would work as an asteroid tug?

Probably very well, with strong enough struts.

Oh. And don't try to use both at once. Interesting things happen.

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magnemoe

magnemoe

Posted
Posted
Oh my stars... I need this in my life. Along with 64 bit and a ton of planet packs. How long did it take to accelerate to that speed? Feels like you'd be booming all the way to the edge of Kerbin's SoI :)

4-5 minutes i think, my guess is that you can turn up the trust if your payload is larger given that its sturdy enough. One argument for an wider version is that its an good idea to build the payload section pretty wide to make it more stable.

- - - Updated - - -

Probably very well, with strong enough struts.

Oh. And don't try to use both at once. Interesting things happen.

has to try, and the idea of using both at once sounds bad :)

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Sophistry

Sophistry

Posted
Posted
It'd be amusing if the mod was done such that, if used on the launchpad, it'd blow up just about all the KSC buildings.

Yes, but if you were contracted to build a space centre for Kerbals, wouldn't YOU build it out of mithril or something?! Compared to some of our disasters, a nuke is small fry.

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magnemoe

magnemoe

Posted
Posted
No need of nuclear farts tech, there are more modern and efficient tech (ion/plasma for ex, 6000 isp good thrust)

See you on Dress in 21 days. Show me something else who can take 20-50 ton so fast.

And yes it was 5 minutes accelerating and 5 minute braking.

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Technical Ben

Technical Ben

Posted
Posted
Really? :huh: What is so enticing is Orion Drive that people obsessively keep dreaming about it? Slamming your own ship with dozens of nuclear explosions - what a brilliant idea. Really, what can go wrong with it?

Almost practical to build, with massively efficient DV.

It's possibly the only other "not imaginary" space craft propulsion other then the extremely hard to make antimatter annihilation, or ion craft.

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mikegarrison

mikegarrison

Posted
Posted (edited)
Almost practical to build, with massively efficient DV.

It's possibly the only other "not imaginary" space craft propulsion other then the extremely hard to make antimatter annihilation, or ion craft.

Where would the antimatter come from?

A fusion torch drive would be great, especially for smaller ships. Orion really works best for massive ships that can easily absorb the kind of impulses that nuclear bombs produce. Besides, it's actually easier to make big nuclear bombs than small ones. But we don't even have controlled fusion here on the ground. (We can get controlled fusion to happen, but only if we put more energy into it than we get out.)

What makes Orion special is that A) we could probably build it today, B) it can take huge, massive payloads to the outer planets, stop there, and come back again, and C) it involves trips that take months, not decades. There is no other tech that can do this and is essentially "on the shelf". If, for some reason, we had to send a manned expedition to Saturn in the next decade, Orion would basically be the only option.

Edited by mikegarrison
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Technical Ben

Technical Ben

Posted
Posted (edited)

Wait. I just realised. Why on earth am I so stupid so as to consider putting one of these on my rockets. No. That's insane. Why would I ever put one on a rocket. No, never. It's just not right to put one on a rocket...

...

...

... no, I need to put 2 on it! That's the only rational thing to do. :D

Edited by Technical Ben
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Archgeek

Archgeek

Posted
Posted
Problem is that's the only thing it's efficient in. Most of the energy from the blast is wasted, you need materials that can withstand kinetic force in the range of several thousand PSI as well as superheating just to get any decent velocity

Nova ninja'd me a bit on the nuclear shaped charges, but he did leave out the fun part -- the nuclear shaped charge is just for firing up the real propellant -- an expanding disk of tungsten(!) plasma that the nuclear shaped charge is designed to make and slam into the pusher plate (which is designed to easilly take the repeated blows). A little under 30-odd percent of the blast power is wasted, if I remember correctly.

As for the nuke engine, while i can see it being useful, im wondering how effective itll be as a weapon, mount 2 of them, one front one rear (to counter the thrust), and fly up to something then nuke it.

Imagine replacing the tungsten disk above with lithium, and tuning it to produce a very long, narow cone of nuclear plasma. Then look up "casaba howitzer".

The thing that makes the Orion drive so good is the high thrust power combined with a fairly decent isp. Unfortunately the place where this is the most useful is also the place where the Orion drive does the most damage.

Ah, so mainly Tylo landers, then. :D

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Red Iron Crown

Red Iron Crown

Posted
Posted
Surely a gas core fission rocket is almost as good and much more practical?

Er, maybe? We're already quite good at making nuclear bombs (too good, really), so the big engineering challenge for Orion is the pusher plate. A gas core fission design needs the rocket core itself developed as the big engineering challenge. Not sure which is easier to solve.

And don't call me Shirley.

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EladDv

EladDv

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Er, maybe? We're already quite good at making nuclear bombs (too good, really), so the big engineering challenge for Orion is the pusher plate. A gas core fission design needs the rocket core itself developed as the big engineering challenge. Not sure which is easier to solve.

And don't call me Shirley.

yeah but wont the ISP be much better with gas core since you get much more of the nuclear energy generated in opposition to the power delivered through a small part of the explosion because the rest of it goes into empty space- i mean it is surely "worth" the investment in order to either lower the output of radiation from the nuclear reaction or get much higher thrust Shirley

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Red Iron Crown

Red Iron Crown

Posted
Posted
yeah but wont the ISP be much better with gas core since you get much more of the nuclear energy generated in opposition to the power delivered through a small part of the explosion because the rest of it goes into empty space- i mean it is surely "worth" the investment in order to either lower the output of radiation from the nuclear reaction or get much higher thrust Shirley

I was addressing the "practicality" part, in the "how much new technology/materials have to be developed for this to work" sense. It's a difficult thing in comparing putative technologies, because we aren't 100% sure of all the obstacles that we will encounter during development.

Nice whitetext, LOL.

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