Most ridiculous government funded space ideas.

[crazyewok]

Does 'copy right' also prevent you from even giving the name of the book?

Fairly sure he means Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship By George Dyson - it has a chapter named Coca Cola in it and its about the charge dispenser, though the previewed parts on Google Books don't specifically mention Coke doing work.

What he said, that was probbaly the book im thinking of. I read so many I forgot the title until he said. Thanks. Thats the problem with useing libary I lose track of what I read.

Lets say it makes it halfway to orbit and then fails, and begins raining 100kt charges over Europe or Africa. Do you just say, "Oops, my bad?"

Depends on a few things. They would only explode if they are activated. And Im guessing activation would only happend one at a time as they are passed through the engine so if catatrophic faliure happend Im guessing they would be insert and you would end up with a hundred odd inert bombs being droped. As weights not a issue they would most likley (if the designer had sense) be capable of crash landing.

something anyone should wish for.

I do and always will

[crazyewok]

By the way, This section of the non-rocket wiki article references the aforementioned book by George Dyson as saying that an Orion launch within the Earth's Magnetosphere would kill between 1 and 10 people per launch.

If I rember what I read (and it may have been a diffrent book as a few years back) the 1-10 statistic was caluculated at the start. By the end they had reduced it to less than 1 after takieng into acount measures such as placeing a solid metal plate under the launch site to avoid material being sucked up into the fireball to create fallout and was measured down futher when people looked at it a few decaded later afyer operation plowhare. There were things just stated, not hard detail was given being still classified so not much was mentioned in the book that I read except that the fallout issue could be resolved. Anyway the US govermet is willing to kill dozens off inocents in a drone strike to kill one terrorist for queationble benifit. even without takeing fallout reduction into acount killing 12 in one launch to put into orbit the infrastuce needed to colonise space and solve the comeing resource shortages and save million of lives? Worth the trade. Worse trades off have been made as stated. Remeber you only need to launch a couple due to the high payload after wihich you would have all the means in orbits to build ships in orbit.

Im going to order the book now and reread it so I hopefully can get some more infomation.

Edited December 23, 2013 by crazyewok

[Tiberion]

Anyway the US govermet is willing to kill dozens off inocents in a drone strike to kill one terrorist for queationble benifit. even without takeing fallout reduction into acount killing 12 in one launch to put into orbit the infrastuce needed to colonise space and solve the comeing resource shortages and save million of lives? Worth the trade. Worse trades off have been made as stated. Remeber you only need to launch a couple due to the high payload after wihich you would have all the means in orbits to build ships in orbit.

Yeah and every nation that has ever fought a war have killed civilians by the thousands. Spears, swords, axes, bullets, conventional bombs, nuclear bombs chemical/bio weapons, drone strikes. They're all just tools. Sometimes the wars were justified and sometimes they were not, but nonetheless civilian casualties are never "okay" and they certainly don't give anyone an excuse to kill civilians 'for the greater good' in other ways. We're supposed to be evolving as a race and learning from our mistakes, finding a better way. Irradiating ourselves and poisoning the planet further is NOT the way to begin our trek out into the stars.

Worth the trade off? Absolutely not.

There could be a place for nuclear pulse propulsion for a ship constructed in orbit sometimes in the future, when we have the other technology needed to go exploring. But not in our lifetime, I think. And by then, we will probbaly have better and safer energy sources anyway.

I think if the experts in the field really thought the project was worth proceeding, they would have fought to exceptions to the ban. Its dead for a reason, and its not just political pressure.

[crazyewok]

Irradiating ourselves and poisoning the planet further is NOT the way to begin our trek out into the stars.

.

Bit of a exageration. Compared to all the nuclear tests and other accidenst it would barely be a dent and that useing old 1950's nukes without any safeguards. And anyway in the next 100 hundred years how many you think will die and suffer due to overpopulation and resource shortages?. It is a maths game im afraid. If we wait a hundred years for a "better way" that may or may not appear it could be too late. Better to bite the bullet and go now while the goings sort of good.

[crazyewok]

As for reason cancelled ? I think it was the bbc documentry in a interview with Dyson that the USAF was part funnding the project and they showed Kennerdy a mock model britsleing in weaponry (a eary SDI) which made him slash the budget, when the NTBT came in it got the final axe, there was also concerns about how the research being done and the suppsidly clean, small and cheap nukes could pose a huge security risk which caused NASA to axe it role and why alot of it still under lock and key, the worry being if they let the genie out the bottle every rogue state and there mothers would be able build nukes.

Edited December 23, 2013 by crazyewok

[Tiberion]

Bit of a exageration. Compared to all the nuclear tests and other accidenst it would barely be a dent and that useing old 1950's nukes without any safeguards. And anyway in the next 100 hundred years how many you think will die and suffer due to overpopulation and resource shortages?.

Virtually none. We can easily feed the world's population, and have the capacity to do so many times over. World hunger is a two-fold problem: distribution of existing supplies around the world (its expensive) and education/technology issues in regions where its harder to farm due to climate issues.

Now, population will eventually be an issue of course, and humans will either have to reduce the population (this will not be pleasant, even if its just via birth regulation) or go elsewhere.

But is Project Orion critical for this? Not in my opinion. Nuclear propulsion might be the solution in a decade or two when we go exploring the system (See BBC's docudrama Voyage to the Planets) but we weren't ready to do it in the 50s or 60s, nor are we really ready now. And for launching from Earth, it doesn't offer anything except cost savings compared to traditional rockets, and being cheaper isn't a good enough reason to offset the very real risks it poses. You want to build a nuclear ship in orbit and send it bouncing around the system, I'm all for it. But launch it normally in pieces. or wait for a breakthrough.

And just because Orion didn't happen doesn't mean science isn't researching all the fields necessary to explore the stars. Orion was an imperfect solution to a problem we don't even have yet.

And if that is true, Kennedy was right; small, cheap, powerful warheads are a nightmare scenario, especially in today's political world. Given they are basically useless outside of weaponry and one fairly impractical space launcher, keeping them locked away and safe is very prudent.

Edited December 23, 2013 by Tiberion

[crazyewok]

Im not so much talking food but more industrial resources especialy rare earths which tension is starting over.

If we had cost effevtive access to space + plus were able to put our most polluting industrys inorbit orthe moon you would sort the problem of resource scarity and pollution out, the only other option is to give up alot of comforts we take for granteed and to hell with that idea! Same with overpopulation! Rather take the risk than suffer forced sterlisations or worse!

Any a orion would not be like the ships you have now requireing multiple lauched to accomplish anything, you just need one and only one to jump start orbital manufactureing and set up a stable base of operations, after that you can use convential craft to shuttle people back and forth.

[Tiberion]

you just need one and only one to jump start orbital manufactureing and set up a stable base of operations, after that you can use convential craft to shuttle people back and forth.

You keep saying that, but its not true. Even if you start simple and make/store the supplies needed for space travel up there (propellants, oxidizer, air, and water) you would need an enormous orbital facility to store and process it. Never mind the fleet of craft needed to fan out across the system to gather these materials (which we don't have the technology to power yet to do it in time periods measured in periods less than years)

Fabricating ship parts or crew modules in orbit? That's pure science fiction at this point. Robotic, computer driven operations exist on Earth in very specific conditions. Completely untested in space. Durable, flexible EVA suits for human builders? Don't exist. A huge pressurized orbital drydock to work in natural clothes? It might exist on paper somewhere, but ti would be extremely expensive and hard to maintain. ALL of these would occur in zero G, where intricate work is difficult and untested except by astronauts on the ISS on a fairly small scale.

The ISS is the pinnacle of human spaceflight (Apollo is flashier, but having a (semi)permanent outpost in orbit is a much greater technological achievement.) but it is still nothing more than a series of pressure vessels that are big enough to hold a coupe of humans and some equipment. We are decades away from any sort of in-space industry and who knows how long before we're not depending on launching things from Earth on rockets. You seem to have some idealistic idea that Orion is going to deliver a city into orbit in one launch and we're suddenly an interplanetary society. Its not realistic.

All of the stuff above the "blast shield and Coke Machine-holding-nukes" would be the same technology we have now. We don't have some glorious hidden capability just waiting for a heavy launcher.

When we do need it, we'll develop it. And it will be better and safer than a pipe dream from the 1950s, when we thought we'd all be flying to Mars in Nuclear-powered cars for a vacation by now.

[rpayne88]

If I rember what I read (and it may have been a diffrent book as a few years back) the 1-10 statistic was caluculated at the start. By the end they had reduced it to less than 1 after takieng into acount measures such as placeing a solid metal plate under the launch site to avoid material being sucked up into the fireball to create fallout and was measured down futher when people looked at it a few decaded later afyer operation plowhare. There were things just stated, not hard detail was given being still classified so not much was mentioned in the book that I read except that the fallout issue could be resolved. Anyway the US govermet is willing to kill dozens off inocents in a drone strike to kill one terrorist for queationble benifit. even without takeing fallout reduction into acount killing 12 in one launch to put into orbit the infrastuce needed to colonise space and solve the comeing resource shortages and save million of lives? Worth the trade. Worse trades off have been made as stated. Remeber you only need to launch a couple due to the high payload after wihich you would have all the means in orbits to build ships in orbit.

Im going to order the book now and reread it so I hopefully can get some more infomation.

Any solution that requires sacrificing lives is not an effective solution. Period. Never mind the political fallout (pun intended) if the people of a free country, such as the U.S. or E.U., found out about such losses due to a launch.

[Aghanim]

Virtually none. We can easily feed the world's population, and have the capacity to do so many times over. World hunger is a two-fold problem: distribution of existing supplies around the world (its expensive) and education/technology issues in regions where its harder to farm due to climate issues.

Now, population will eventually be an issue of course, and humans will either have to reduce the population (this will not be pleasant, even if its just via birth regulation) or go elsewhere.

But is Project Orion critical for this? Not in my opinion. Nuclear propulsion might be the solution in a decade or two when we go exploring the system (See BBC's docudrama Voyage to the Planets) but we weren't ready to do it in the 50s or 60s, nor are we really ready now. And for launching from Earth, it doesn't offer anything except cost savings compared to traditional rockets, and being cheaper isn't a good enough reason to offset the very real risks it poses. You want to build a nuclear ship in orbit and send it bouncing around the system, I'm all for it. But launch it normally in pieces. or wait for a breakthrough.

And just because Orion didn't happen doesn't mean science isn't researching all the fields necessary to explore the stars. Orion was an imperfect solution to a problem we don't even have yet.

And if that is true, Kennedy was right; small, cheap, powerful warheads are a nightmare scenario, especially in today's political world. Given they are basically useless outside of weaponry and one fairly impractical space launcher, keeping them locked away and safe is very prudent.

Actually, that is what makes me think that Orion is kinda... bad? Getting to account of all of that nukes is hard, and one missing nuke = one city destroyed? Especially if there is a terrorist on board the ship

What we need is something that have the same explosive power as nuke but it needs the ship to start it, it couldn't explode on itself

Like inertial containment. But they have puny thrust...

[The Fleet Master]

I'm honestly shocked no one's said Project Thor, I mean C'mon Tungsten telephone poles. Expensive and useless when you can put a nuke up there that can do more to a city than the Small Nuclear Yield of a Rod.

[iDan122]

I'm honestly shocked no one's said Project Thor, I mean C'mon Tungsten telephone poles. Expensive and useless when you can put a nuke up there that can do more to a city than the Small Nuclear Yield of a Rod.

1. Nuclear weapons are forbidden at the moments.

2. Nuclear charges detonated in LEO create an EMP, which is not incredibly destructive, it mainly damages electronics.

3. Nuclear weaponry detonated in space is incredibly bad for the ozone layer.

4. A nuclear fallout will form and will spread quite widely, with some 15k km radius from the initial detonation point, so pinpoint damage is impossible and if you want to destroy France for example, you'll end up killing people in Germany, Spain, Italy, anyway, most of Europe and you would want that, so it is Nuclear weaponry in space which is useless unlike Tungsten rods.

Tungsten rods are very effective. First, they require, well, tungsten which is cheaper than radioactive materials.

Second, tungsten rods which are deorbited can hit a city at Mach 10 and thus create an incredible amount of destruction and might even cause a small earthquake. A pinpoint attack is possible since the rods are slick and there's minimal friction with the air. Their speed is also an advantage so it is impossible to intercept it with any existing AA weaponry.

So tungsten rods are pretty much the future of space based weaponry, if that ever happens.

Finally, you are incorrect that tungsten rods are nuclear.

The energy they release on impact with the surface comes from its kinetic energy, thus meaning that no fallout happens after the weapon has been used. So we can conclude that tungsten rods are much more Eco-friendly.

[crazyewok]

You keep saying that, but its not true. Even if you start simple and make/store the supplies needed for space travel up there (propellants, oxidizer, air, and water) you would need an enormous orbital facility to store and process it.

Seeing as a orion can lift 8 million tons in one go you could very well build a enormous facility with plenty of start up materials and supplies in one launch.

Never mind the fleet of craft needed to fan out across the system to gather these materials (which we don't have the technology to power yet to do it in time periods measured in periods less than years)

Erm if you build more nuclear propulsion ships in orbit you have a means and away to get to most places in the solar system within a year. Who cares if you use nuclear powerd ships once in space? You cant exactly pollute space. Even russia are toying with the Idea of building a Nuclear ship in orbit to get to mars in 6 weeks. If you have a enomous facility to help assemble the craft it will make it alot more easier. The chem powerd craft could be used only for ferrying people into orbit not solar system travel.

Fabricating ship parts or crew modules in orbit? That's pure science fiction at this point.

Only because we can only launch a few dozen tons at a time. Its only sceince fiction because we are not even trying. Anyway if Russia gets it way thats going to be its plan anyway.

A huge pressurized orbital drydock to work in natural clothes? It might exist on paper somewhere, but ti would be extremely expensive and hard to maintain.

Hense you use a orion to get it in orbit. I think the price was pegged at 12 billion USD

ALL of these would occur in zero G, where intricate work is difficult and untested except by astronauts on the ISS on a fairly small scale.

Who said zero G? See you still thinking inside the box. If you have a 8 million ton orion space station you could build it to spin as it would be large enough to be able to produce fake centifugal gavrity without causeing motion sickness.

This is why Space exploration is near dead (at least with NASA) , no one is willing to think outside the box or take a risk.

Russia at least seem to have the balls to look into this:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/05/russia_nasa_nuclear_spacecraft/

They are just haveing problems getting the money. But $600 million? Thats not exactly huge amounts.

If America not carefull it could be left far behind. Ironic seeing as they were so far ahead once.

Edited December 23, 2013 by crazyewok

[rdfox]

For the record, many companies are entirely capable of designing and/or building things not at all related to their core business. For example, in World War Two, M1 Garand battle rifles were built by contractors ranging from traditional gun manufacturers like Remington to odd choices like Singer Sewing Machine Company and Rock-Ola Jukeboxes. At the same time, the M3 "Grease Gun" submachine gun and the FP-45 "Liberator" pistol were both designed *and* built by General Motors Guidelamp Division, which was GM's specialist division for making *headlights*. In a non-wartime example, the first stages of the Saturn I and Saturn IB rockets were all designed and built by Chrysler.

Any solution that requires sacrificing lives is not an effective solution. Period. Never mind the political fallout (pun intended) if the people of a free country, such as the U.S. or E.U., found out about such losses due to a launch.

I'd like to see someone do a study on the number of people who die as a result of cancers and diseases resulting from the rather toxic exhaust compounds emitted by solid rockets and hypergolic-fuel rockets. I doubt it's in the "one per launch" category, but I wouldn't be at all shocked if we found out that the increase in the concentration of those compounds in the air from using them ended up causing a similar number of deaths per ton to the same orbit as we would have gotten from Orion. Not to mention that we're a hell of a lot better at treating cancer now than we were in the late 50s...

[crazyewok]

I'd like to see someone do a study on the number of people who die as a result of cancers and diseases resulting from the rather toxic exhaust compounds emitted by solid rockets and hypergolic-fuel rockets. I doubt it's in the "one per launch" category, but I wouldn't be at all shocked if we found out that the increase in the concentration of those compounds in the air from using them ended up causing a similar number of deaths per ton to the same orbit as we would have gotten from Orion. Not to mention that we're a hell of a lot better at treating cancer now than we were in the late 50s...

Plus with modern highly efficinat nukes and basic fallout prevention tecniques I sure it could be far less then 1 now days. The 1-12 estimate was made useing 1957 nukes and useing no preventative measures. Plus if we can get laser ignited fusion going it could eliminate the need for a fission stage altogether, the only reason laser ignited fusion has been ignored is again the fear of a security risk as it would makeing buiding nukes alot more easier.

[PakledHostage]

Plus with modern highly efficinat nukes and basic fallout prevention tecniques I sure it could be far less then 1 now days. The 1-12 estimate was made useing 1957 nukes and useing no preventative measures.

You've been going on about this subject in this thread and in the How would you improve the Shuttle design? thread long enough that we all know that you love the idea of this science fiction. Sadly for you, the vast majority of sane individuals and their governments are averse to "s**t*ing in their own nest" to that degree. It may be possible to reduce fallout with modern weapons, but you won't eliminate it all together. What amount of fallout is too much? And what of the other effects besides fallout? Many of these are quite severe and poorly understood due to the limited number of tests performed.

Ref.

Upper Atmospheric Disturbances Due to High Altitude Nuclear Detonations

Some Effects of Nuclear Explosions on the Ionosphere

Edited December 23, 2013 by PakledHostage

[crazyewok]

You've been going on about this subject in this thread and in the How would you improve the Shuttle design? thread

Wrong! This is a diffrent thread. Infact I think I only posted 3 times in that thread. And I not ashamed to say that the Shuttle was a piece of junk, hence why NASA are useing Soyuz vessels now.

long enough that we all know that you love the idea of this science fiction.

How is it Cience fiction is was a REAL idea with sound phyics involved. Can you prove to me it wont work?

Sadly for you, the vast majority of sane individuals and their governments are averse to "s**t*ing in their own nest" to that degree.

It would be a dent compared to the fallout created from REAL weapons tests, It would be dent compared to the polluntants we pump out every day to create things like the PC your typing on! plus if you went the 100% fusion route (something with little known reserach being done) there would be no fallout. It would not be world destroying idea, it would not cause a nuclear winter or massive areas of perment radioactive areas. Do it in a desert or at sea, place a large metal pad underneath and you and me wont be any worse off than we are now.

It may be possible to reduce fallout with modern weapons, but you won't eliminate it all together. What amount of fallout is too much? And what of the other effects besides fallout? Many of these are quite severe and poorly understood due to the limited number of tests performed.

Thats why I say do more research. Rather than just scrub the idea from pure ignorant hippie style fear, we should sit down and actually do some reserach and calucualte what the risk actually is and not what we think it is. Rather than pegging everything thats nuclear as bad like ignorant peasents in dark ages we should sit down and figure what are the risks and can those risks eliminated. And that in all areas.

Edited December 23, 2013 by crazyewok

[Mulkari]

Fallout is manageable, there were hundreds of nuclear tests done without any regard to fallout. Real security issue would be a failure while still suborbital and ship crashing for example in some lawless country in Africa, good luck in retrieving the bombs remaining on board.

At first a scaled down test model would have to be assembled in space so the propulsion system could be fully tested without a possibility of crash in case of failure. Likely multiple in space propulsion tests would be required to understand possible failure modes and to refine the design for full scale ground launched version.

[rpayne88]

Fallout is manageable, there were hundreds of nuclear tests done without any regard to fallout. Real security issue would be a failure while still suborbital and ship crashing for example in some lawless country in Africa, good luck in retrieving the bombs remaining on board.

At first a scaled down test model would have to be assembled in space so the propulsion system could be fully tested without a possibility of crash in case of failure. Likely multiple in space propulsion tests would be required to understand possible failure modes and to refine the design for full scale ground launched version.[/quote

IIRC, they now make a device that mechanically safes nuclear weapons. Maybe that could be used on each warhead.

[crazyewok]

At first a scaled down test model would have to be assembled in space so the propulsion system could be fully tested without a possibility of crash in case of failure. Likely multiple in space propulsion tests would be required to understand possible failure modes and to refine the design for full scale ground launched version.

Russia it seems are already on to that. They seem to have seen the posibility and are not scared or closed minded. Even better there are looking at refinning the idea. I think there line of thought is rather than just denotating nukes, instead use Nuclear engines to super heat plamsa and eject that instead as you get no fallout. Kudos to Russia and looking beyond Chem rockets.

[crazyewok]

[

IIRC, they now make a device that mechanically safes nuclear weapons. Maybe that could be used on each warhead.

Maybe some sort of device that renders the nuke permanetly dude? Still you dont want some tinpot dictorship getting hold of weapons grade uranium or plutonium, which was one of the fears of the original orion project as the methods of mass refinning uranium would have made it cheap and plentifull. Weapons grade material doesnt have to be expensive, but USA/Russia/UK/France ect have kept it expensive and for good reason. Though those reason seem to be disapearoing as the country no one wanted to have nukes seem to either have them or already have the equipemt in place to make them.

[Psycix]

No space idea is ridiculous.

It is in our nature to explore and experiment.

Without crazy ideas (with spaceflight itself being one), no revolutionary inventions are made, and our species die out on this planet without ever going to space.

[Kryten]

Russia it seems are already on to that.

'It seems' from what exactly? The only 'non-chemical' propulsion systems they've been working on since the collapse are ion engines, and they'd been been using those since the 70's anyway.

[crazyewok]

I already posted a link but heres another one http://indrus.in/articles/2012/10/25/breakthrough_in_quest_for_nuclear-powered_spacecraft_18625.html.

[Nibb31]

Your link about an NTR. Nothing to do with Orion.

NTR is a technology from the 60's that was experimented by both the Soviet Union and the US. As opposed to Orion, NTR prototypes were actually built and extensively tested. Both nations were pretty much ready to roll it out. NASA had plans for a nuclear variant of the Saturn V for Mars missions.

But neither NERVA or the RD-0410 involved atmospheric explosions or 50-mile exclusion zones. That's just stupid.