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Atomic Chemical Counter-thrust Orbital Payload Elevator
Many of you are probably scared-off immediately you see the word "Orion". Stop. There is a problem here. This legacy is a bad thing but the notion would be sound if it were re-written today. Effectively the muddled thinking back then has ruined all chances of proper consideration, possibly forever. Follow me for a moment. Scrap the ground launch building block and you have to build in space. If you test in space then you need massive counter-thrust chemical engines. Those engines are what will get you to Mars. That is to say the hopes of physical containment in space of a fission explosion would necessitate the very type of engines to provide counter-thrust that no-one in their right mind would consider funding to visit a barren planet. Confused? Hang on.
To my shame I am a faster-than-light theorist. To my honor I am anti-Orion. I am anti-Orion because I invented the entire concept of what Orion talks about without ever having heard of it. Bad research? No. I was scared of searching for any information on the Internet in case it was illegal. However I relied on my nuclear knowledge from school and knowing up to the end of 1945 is just fine.
My point. My non-point is that psychologists should examine what makes Orion proponents so passionate. Does this bore you? I think that you have to forgive the passion of those whom are more political and less scientific than perhaps you maybe. However Mutually Assured Destruction was once with us, and if you can say to yourself "I am a scientist and what the politicians do it there business" I implore you to see that if because of political decisions MAD passes, you as a scientist ignored Orion. That is why in general Orion proponents are so crazy. Since a scientist can hide from the weight of political conscience, the concept that he or she would share the responsibility of MAD is a very weak concern. I never heard of Orion. However the moment I solved the puzzle for myself, I became infused with the idea we the people were doomed. I can see why those who have stumbled across Orion are by absorbing what it is talking about driven to the identical passionate advocation.
So why am I anti-Orion? Understand the passion of Orion is not Orion, or anything to do with Orion. It is a real human hunger to pursue any destiny where nuclear weapons have a useful "use". That is to say using them in space would reduce the risk of using them in war. Simple opportunity costs. I term this the "natural theory of non-use". Taking into consideration that the majority of you reading this are scientists, you will have to trust me when I say that all studies in political history show "horror" is the reason for use.
Before this post becomes insular, my following scheme is an evolution of my study. Not a study of Orion, because my concept was founded in "faster-than-light" ambition. Yet if you recall what I wrote earlier, before I solved the puzzle I was not at all passionate. The moment I did, I became passionate. The reason is simple: with the memories of MAD in the 1980s, my concept like Orion used up what I had come to fear in a benign manner. To repeat: Orion is no more than a "Theory of non-use". Their passion, and non-politicians trust me: there is currently no theory of non use of nuclear weapons.
My good news is that having really looked hard at Orion and compared it with my own ideas, I can dispense my faster-than-light beginnings. Not because I agree with what I am agreeing to, but because I wish to offer the most agreeable way forward. May, if any reader has stuck with me long enough, I present the ACCTOPE. It does not need to travel anywhere but will use up the critical assemblies in operations. This satisfies me and will I know satisfy all Orion advocates. We, whom are more political than scientific, know that historically speaking time is not necessarily on the side of scientists to provide fail-safe peace dividends. The elevator might solve it. I am more historian than scientist. No doubt there are holes in the idea, but why not patch them. This is not an Orion idea. This is my revised revision. My revision was when I met Orion, my revised revision is when I understood that a payload elevator would satisfy my need for a theory of non-use. Here it is. It will get you to Mars. Myself and all the Orion people would relax without any travel whatsoever, merely because as I have explained above it solves the post-MAD continued existence riddle. So if you Mars people want to make a chemical trip, I assure you no one will object. If you can support and build this elevator, Orioneers and I will give you the run of the sky for a while. We don't really need to go anywhere, we just need to use them up. Before some accountants realize how much it is costing to store and protect such things, where no asset value exists because there is no alternative use for an opportunity cost to arise.
It is worth a try so here goes. "All the passion of an Orioneer" you may say and it takes passion to discuss this publicly for fear of your ridicule. So for every anti-Orion everywhere I give you the passion of the elevator.
Atomic Chemical Counter-thrust Orbital Payload Elevator
(ACCTOPE)
Yes it is a “sky hook” application, except with “real” energy inputs and no hints of “perpetual motion” nonsense. In terms of the counterbalance or fulcrum, there is none needed as you can see from this sketch. The counter-thrust engines slow and stop the sky hook once the hook’s payload reaches weightlessness.
http://www.tide2000.com/eppp/newdiag.ht … ewdiag.htm
Perhaps it is more of a harbour tug than a crane or elevator. Nothing on earth I can think of provides an exact design parallel. Maybe it could be compared to a shunting locomotive with an engine at both ends of the railcars. Anyhow this takes Orion in a new direction because once you accept that “ground launch” is a political impossibility for various reasons, you have to consider designing your orbiting test apparatus or test bed. Fire a gunpowder rocket on earth and you can follow it in transport and pick it up for inspection. An Orion cannon fired in an orbit would, without adequately powerful counter-thrust engines, simply shoot out of the solar system and leave little evidence for analysis. If the challenge is physical containment, the cannon (or hollow tube and pusher plate) would need careful inspection each time for cracks and hairline fractures.
Thus the chemical counter-thrust engines would need to easily refuel able. In cost and labour terms, constructing the suggested 500 tonne orbiting titanium cannon is going to actually be cheaper than perhaps building the adjoining chemical counter-thrust engines. However a bright side is that even if the test bed apparatus fails in the end to achieve physical containment of a detonation (within the tube and pusher-plate alignment), the counter-thrust engines could be easily decoupled from the orbiting test apparatus and used after some refilling to provide propulsion for a conventional high speed Mars run. Politicians please take note because these counter-thrust engines will be very big (despite my sketch above!)
Bear in mind the hundreds, if not thousands, of rocket launches such a program would require to construct the orbiting test apparatus. It must put into space not only the titanium cannon in many pieces, the counter-thrust engines in many pieces and the astronauts to build it but also huge quantities of propellant chemicals to refuel the counter-thrust engines for every test required. Hence as soon as success was achieved it would be vital to switch to a more efficient form of placing payload in space. This would immediately relax any political pressures due to fears and/or magnitudes of global warming as a result of the program. Switching to pull payloads through Orion “sky hooks” would hopefully phase out as soon as possible all traditional push payload rocketry. To give the climate a break for a while!
The great thing is that once you have in orbit the first working Orion sky hook, it can lift more than its own body weight with ease. Hence your first pull payloads are further sky hooks just in case there is a problem with the first. The new sky hooks would also potentially be of much greater quality and reliability, having had the advantage of being constructed on earth and in one piece (milled cannon?) Indeed in the meantime it might be wise for a government to build one and keep it in storage just in case a friendly alien race drops by and asks if there is anything they could do for us!
Seriously, the development path of physical containment has not been without trauma. I am sure a few Chinese engineers in 900AD had something to say about trying to build the first cannons out of several pieces to exploit the potential of gunpowder.
“The inventing society of any new and overwhelming explosive compound will fail to develop its most significant application because of an over-whelming sense of what dangers any physical containment will involve.”
Success in space would just be a mere extension of our hard won experience in developing firearms for over a thousand years. Except of course the desired product of this space firing tube is propulsion itself rather than to throw more efficient projectiles.
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