Orion Starship - Orion Starship

Ian · 2002-03-21 16:55:20

I was watching the Cosmos video "Travels through space and time" and I saw Carl Sagan show designs of different kinds of starships that the British Interplanetary Society drew up. One of them was Project Orion. Has anyone in here heard of this?

Shaun Barrett · 2002-03-23 07:15:06

I had vague recollections of Project Orion involving controlled nuclear explosions to accelerate a space ship but couldn't remember the details. In any event, the idea had always sounded crazy to me and so I filed it away in my memory under "P" for "Preposterous"!
Anyhow, I did some research on this last night and found that Project Orion is NOT quite as absurd as I'd thought. Although it does involve ejecting a series of smallish fission bombs behind the craft and exploding them; if done in space it presents no radiation danger to Earth. And the resulting performance is absolutely astounding! Whereas the Isp (specific impulse) of our best chemical rockets is about 450 seconds, Orion's theoretical Isp ranges from 10,000 to possibly 1,000,000 seconds!!
In fact, in 1960 when atmospheric nuclear testing was rife, it was even proposed that Orion might be launched from sea-level (maybe from a floating platform remote from civilisation). It was calculated that about 350 nuclear explosions would achieve orbit and increase atmospheric radioactive contamination by only 1% compared with the going rate at the time! The cost would be about $175 million, less than a shuttle launch, but (and here's the punchline) while a shuttle delivers 20 or 30 tons to orbit, Orion could deliver thousands of tons!!
150 people or more could cruise around the solar system at great speed and in spacious comfort in Orion's huge passenger module because the majority of the initial mass of the craft is payload! Forget Hohmann transfer orbits; you head for Mars in virtually a straight line and get there in days rather than months! And Orion is a laughably cheap thing to build compared to a shuttle.
Actually the British Interplanetary Society's plan, called Daedalus, was for tiny fusion bombs to do the same as Orion's fission bombs, except they advocated a more efficient magnetic nozzle to direct the expanding plasma. The technology for this doesn't yet exist, but Orion has been possible for 30-plus years.
In fact, using a scale model with conventional explosives, an American research team in the 1950s achieved a controlled 100 metre flight using 6 bombs ejected in sequence; thus proving its stability! Only politics stopped Orion's development; not a lack of technology.
For the full story on this, go to:-
My Webpage

Shaun Barrett · 2002-03-23 07:26:54

Oops! My link to the full story doesn't work for some reason. Sorry!
Just type in this:-
www.islandone.org/Propulsion/ProjectOrion.html

Mark S · 2002-04-11 13:23:08

We currently have thousands of nuclear warheads sitting in our stockpiles that will probably (and hopefully) never be used in times of war. Why don't we put them to good use and launch a "Mini-Orion" to land five people and their supplies on the moon or Mars? The idea makes too much sense to be taken seriously in this illogical world. But it would accelerate our growth as a spacefaring society, and it would prevent us from wasting time on ideas like solar sails and fusion rockets that will probably not lead to fruition.

Phobos · 2002-04-11 19:46:40

Do we have the ability to build ships strong enough to constantly withstand the force of exploding nukes? I haven't really read much on the Orion concept but it seems if your going to be exploding nukes anywhere near a vessel it'd have to be build of some divinely inspired material I've never heard of. I guess it might be possible to explode the nukes at such a distance that the shockwaves are diluted enough that no structural damage occurs, but if that turns out to be the case it might be safer just to stick with conventional methods.

Mark S · 2002-04-12 13:06:32

I'm pretty sure that the exploding warhead would be some distance away from the spacecraft before it would be detonated. I'm not aware of any material that can withstand a nuclear blast. Nuclear weapons have always been proposed as weapons that could destroy the most hardened bunkers, caverns, and missile silos.

Adrian · 2002-04-12 14:51:07

While I'll admit that in principle, Project Orion could be made to work, I am willing to bet a large sum of money that it will never come to pass due to political reasons. NASA might be talking about reintroducing nuclear power for spacecrafts, but that's a far cry from lifting up hundreds of armed nuclear warheads into orbit - other countries and very possibly US citizens wouldn't stand for it.

It's a shame in a way, because providing that the safe passage of the warheads into orbit could be assured (and that is no simple thing) it would've been remarkably cool to have seen an Orion spacecraft zooming around the solar system.

Anyway, I suspect that by the time we (as in, most of the whole world) are all comfortable with the thought of Project Orion, technology will have progressed to the point where it will not be an effective solution. Hopefully we won't even have enough nuclear weapons to power it by then!

clark · 2002-04-12 15:12:05

Project Orion, and indeed the entire concept of exploding small fissible material as a source of propulsion is sound and doable.

The concern about materials able to withstand the blast is misguided, but understandable. It is merely an exercise in material science to come up with an adquete alloy that can withstand the frequent blasts- I believe they succeeded in developing a plan for this very problem- a special alloy encases the parts of the ship that receive the direct blasts- I forget what it was called, but it reduced the material by only a fraction of a millimeter- the end result is that this could be achieved.

Also, it should be noted that they aren't talking abotu using H-Bombs and the other assorted horrors of atomic war- these are very small, controlled, and directed nuclear blasts- not hundred of megatons, but several magnatitudes smaller.

Now think about THIS: You reduce the cost of launch by creating a vehicle that can cheaply place lots of tons in orbit.

How hard do you think it then becomes to create a large number of kinetic kill weapons (a 20 ft shaft of solid metal dropped from orbit can put a very large hole in the ground).

Mark S · 2002-04-21 21:17:31

I wentto the awesome Encyclopedia Astronautica (www.astronautix.com) and got some more details about General Atomics' Project Orion. The bombs would be detonated 200 feet behind the vehicle's pusher plate, and each would have a yield of 0.1 kilotons. Apparently Von Braun backed the idea, but not even a man of his influence could convince NASA that it was a good idea.

I don't know much about atomic bomb yields, but I'm pretty sure that we have some tactical nuclear weapons with a similar yield.

Anyone up for swing around Mars?

Ian · 2002-04-26 17:07:24

How safe is Nuclear propulsion.

Phobos · 2002-04-26 22:53:44

I think a lot of experimentation and testing would need to be done before someone could definately answer how safe an Orion type nuke propulsion scheme is. I hope someone gets the guts to try something like this out in space despite the cry of over-sensitive environmentalists.

Dayton3 · 2002-06-04 19:50:19

The first atomic bomb ever detonated was exploded on top of a steel tower 100 feet tall,

10 kilotons.

The bottom several meters of the steel tower SURVIVED the blast and can still be seen at the Trinity site.

Mark S · 2002-06-05 09:51:14

Once we iron out the political roadblocks, I believe that Orion would be technically feasible. To back up what Dayton3 said, I present the following: in the book "Sum of All Fears," an 11.2 KT nuclear bomb cannot completely destroy a football stadium. I'm certain that Tom Clancy's assumption is based on his consultation with experts in bomb effects. The question is not whether the pusher plate can survive one nuclear blast, but whether it can take repeated nyuclear blasts. The original team behind Orion did create a pusher plate that survived several conventional blasts, and Von Braun became a supporter of Orion when he saw the demonstration.

In the American nuclear stockpile, we have large quantities of B61 gravity bombs, each with a low-end yield of 3 KT. I would like to see if Orion could be modified to use these warheads.

Shaun Barrett · 2002-06-05 19:00:23

It seems to me that a higher frequency stream of very low-yield bombs might be more comfortable for the crew than a low frequency stream of higher-yield bombs.
Wouldn't it be better to have 0.1kt explosions every 0.5 seconds than Mark S's 3kt explosions every 5 or 6 seconds? I'm not trying to be critical and I know Mark S is just trying to be practical by using off-the-shelf hardware. But I'm genuinely curious about yield and frequency ... is it possible to produce 0.05kt bombs and pump them out every, say, 0.2 seconds? There must be a lower limit to both yield and timing, I suppose. I imagine the natural resonant frequency of the spring system behind the plate would have to be matched to the frequency of the blasts, too(? )
I believe the pusher plate itself is not really a problem. Although the thermal pulse from a nearby detonation runs to millions of degrees, it is very short-lived. It seems that only a very thin surface layer of the plate is vapourised for each explosion and, apparently, one plate can be made to withstand thousands of them.
Adrian's right, of course, when he indicates it'll be a cold day in Hades when they OK surface launches for Orion!! Still, some people say we're overdue for an ice-age!

SpaceNut · 2005-01-10 11:53:12

Thou the title Fire and brim stone be a little off for the content of the spacereview article it however does discusion the use of this old project and the efforts to turn this sort of power level into something akin to teraforming our way of energy use and supply.

Martian Republic · 2005-01-10 12:58:38

I have read a few articles on this Orion project. From what I remember, there are several different type's of the basic Orion Project. If you just explode a micro-nuclear warhead behind it, you do get push, but it very inefficient, because most of the blast power would be going in all directions and not just pushing the space craft. So another design of that Orion nuclear rocket was to put it inside of container. Now this container would twenty or thirty more in diameter with rocket nosle one end so we can get more of the energy for our nuclear rocket. Now these nuclear pellets are about the size of a pea, because a little bit nuclear material go's a long way. So we are talking about something the size of foot locker to the size of a normal size car amount of nuclear fuel for putting something into space the size and weight of the entire Shuttle stack, fuel tanks, buster and all and fully loaded. Now something that has that much power has nasty kick to it. In that when you explode one of those mini-nukes, the execration is so great that it would kill everybody inside the space craft. To solve that problem, they would put a plate inside there rocket engine where the explosion was to take place. This plate would be connected to a plunger and so it was moveable and it would absorb the initial blast and smooth out the shock wave so that it did not kill the people on this Orion space craft. As a general rule of thumb, the bigger the container where the blast was to take place and the bigger the plate being used to absorb that blast, the more efficient that the Orion would run.

Larry,

GCNRevenger · 2005-01-10 13:25:47

You mean the vibration would be deadly...

You are also confusing Orion and Orion derivitives. The classic Orion uses regular weapon-like nuclear bombs, that while small are still pretty large and very complicated. No faculties aboard the ship are required to detonate each "pulse unit."

You are also talking about "Mini Orion" concepts that fall under this broad umbella...

The MiniMag concept, which uses a magnetic field instead of a pusher plate, and would use Americium pulse units instead of regular Plutonium ones which are a little smaller.

Pellet fission, where small bits of Uranium or Plutonium (the pea sized ones) that are detonated by a particle beam fired from the ship.

Pellet fusion, where small globs of Deuterium or He3 would be detonated by a laser or particle beam.

There is no way to get around the problem of the high minimum critical mass needed for a conventional classical Orion concept.

Mad Grad Student · 2005-01-14 22:31:28

Orion is cool stuff and almost definately would be feasible, but I wouldn't bet on any orion system from making it higher than the original test article went in the late 1950s. What sets orion apart from all of the other proposed starship plans is that it is 100% feasible with nothing more than today's technology. However, it would be a marginal starship at best, traveling at only around .01c, and any government would be about as likely to invest in a spaceship that flies on nuclear bombs as it would be to try genocide as a method of fixing social security. There are so many better ways to do it, if the technology base can be advanced about 20 years to incorporate fusion drive.

Sam Dinkin is nuts if he believes anything that he wrote about in that article "Fire and Brime Stone" has a snowball's chance on Venus of becoming reality. We're really not that far away from achieving controlled nuclear fusion, and the environmental hazards that a power plant that explodes 27 nuclear weapons every day would make coal look green as renewable energy sources. It just wouldn't make sense to build an orion fusion reactor.

The part about daming the Mediterranien was even goofier, though. A dam across the Straits of Gibraltar is almost definately impossible for some time during the foreseeable future, and even if it were possible it would be a disaster for trade among European and north African countries. I don't know what the exact figures are, but every day vast amounts of goods go through Gibraltar, and I don't see how you could get them through there anymore under Dinkin's setup. Not to mention the environmental impact, maintainence costs, etc, the whole plan is just loony.

Project Orion was very entertaining and a story about it would make a great novel, but in reality it's not going anywhere. It's fun, but ultimately a digression from the real path to the planets and the stars.

Martian Republic · 2005-01-15 10:00:44

Orion is cool stuff and almost definately would be feasible, but I wouldn't bet on any orion system from making it higher than the original test article went in the late 1950s. What sets orion apart from all of the other proposed starship plans is that it is 100% feasible with nothing more than today's technology. However, it would be a marginal starship at best, traveling at only around .01c, and any government would be about as likely to invest in a spaceship that flies on nuclear bombs as it would be to try genocide as a method of fixing social security. There are so many better ways to do it, if the technology base can be advanced about 20 years to incorporate fusion drive.
Sam Dinkin is nuts if he believes anything that he wrote about in that article "Fire and Brime Stone" has a snowball's chance on Venus of becoming reality. We're really not that far away from achieving controlled nuclear fusion, and the environmental hazards that a power plant that explodes 27 nuclear weapons every day would make coal look green as renewable energy sources. It just wouldn't make sense to build an orion fusion reactor.
The part about daming the Mediterranien was even goofier, though. A dam across the Straits of Gibraltar is almost definately impossible for some time during the foreseeable future, and even if it were possible it would be a disaster for trade among European and north African countries. I don't know what the exact figures are, but every day vast amounts of goods go through Gibraltar, and I don't see how you could get them through there anymore under Dinkin's setup. Not to mention the environmental impact, maintainence costs, etc, the whole plan is just loony.
Project Orion was very entertaining and a story about it would make a great novel, but in reality it's not going anywhere. It's fun, but ultimately a digression from the real path to the planets and the stars.

I'm a fusion proponent too, but fusion powered rocket are probably ten to twenty years away. Fission powered rockets can be taken right off the self and pressed into service in a two to four year time frame. Besides, we have to develop the space industries both public and private if we are going to do much of anything in space. We can't just turn the factory on and crank out a space industries. It take time and large scale investment spread out over a twenty to thirty year time frame or longer. We need to start off with the technology we already have in our hands like chemical rocket and fission powered rockets with an idea of putting fusion powered rocket to replace the fission powered rocket when they have been developed. That the errors that most people on this forum make and this idea that you can just buy something and put it in place and now we have a space economy and it does not work that way. If we are interested in setting up a space economy we will need to start where we at right now and with what ever technologies we have right now and go forward with a dedicated plan of action.

The technological that we are going to be using will have barriers to which we can not cross, because the technology that we using will limit us to what we can do. By the time fusion would be developed and the fact that it more efficient and has less radioactive material along with generating more power. Those barriers will fall down and we move forward until we encounter the new barrier to the technologies that we are using. Then we go back to developing new technologies to cross the new barrier that we ran into. Otherwise we will just march in place and go nowhere and always planning to go, but never going there.

Larry,

Mad Grad Student · 2005-01-16 18:12:01

Are you in a big hurry to launch an interstellar colonization mission in the next 20 years? I'd love to see that too, but I can assure you that such a mission has about zero chance of being considered by anyone, first we'll focus on Mars and then the rest of the solar system. For the solar system, technology like NTRs and solar sails should be sufficient for transporatation, and by the time that we do reach for the stars (literally) hyper-efficient fusion drives should be well within our reach, if not common baseline technology. We can either launch now and save 20 years on development time or wait 20 years and save several centuries off trip time. The fact remains that by the time we're in the market for starships orion will be by no means the only propulsion option, and really doesn't deserve much consideration.

Martian Republic · 2005-01-19 10:56:01

Are you in a big hurry to launch an interstellar colonization mission in the next 20 years? I'd love to see that too, but I can assure you that such a mission has about zero chance of being considered by anyone, first we'll focus on Mars and then the rest of the solar system. For the solar system, technology like NTRs and solar sails should be sufficient for transporatation, and by the time that we do reach for the stars (literally) hyper-efficient fusion drives should be well within our reach, if not common baseline technology. We can either launch now and save 20 years on development time or wait 20 years and save several centuries off trip time. The fact remains that by the time we're in the market for starships orion will be by no means the only propulsion option, and really doesn't deserve much consideration.

I understand perfectly that we are not going to have any interstellar Mission in the near future, we just don't have the technology to do it. Even with Fusion Powered Rockets it would take a hundred years or longer to get to Alpha-Century one way with fusion power so we won't be sending man on an interstellar mission for at least fifty to hundred years into the future. Even using Anti-Matter probably won't be brining the flight time to go to Alpha-Century down below a fifty year trip either.

So no to your question, I'm not trying to go Interstellar Mission. We would have to have some break through technology that I don't see happening right now. But, I suppose it possible, but not likely.

Even if we wanted to colonize Mars, it is at least two generations or possibly three generations away to be able to put together a serious colonization program. Even a small Colonization project of the Moon would take at least one generation if not two generations. So any attempt to do an interstellar colonization would be Century or more away.

So what we want to do is to setup a long term program of what we want to have done in a twenty year time frame, forty year time frame, sixty year time frame , eighty year time frame, hundred year time frame. We work with the technology that we have right now to do short term goals and mission along with maintaining the infrastructure for future mission. We also decide what new technologies that we have to develop so we can achieve our future mission that we want to accomplish. The Space Station that we put into obit to service our fission powered rockets will be used to service fusion powered rockets when we develop them. If we develop Anti-Matter powered rockets, then the same space Station that were put into service those fission or fusion powered rocket will be there or there replacement space stations will be there.

I'm not looking for the Golden Bullet that going to make something like Star Trek possible. I'm looking for a systematic building up of the space based infrastructure and developing new technologies that will eventually lead to that kind of space based society which will probably be hundred or more years into the future. I'm looking at setting up a systematic approach at setting up where we intend to be in a grand mission of exploring space and colonizing it. So just about every technology we develop will be looked at as old technology in a ten to twenty year time and even as a museum piece that needs to be retired.

So we use chemical rocket for another five years or so until we can go to fission powered deep space rocket.

We stay with fission powered rockets for ten to twenty years while we developing fusion powered rocket and testing them out and work out the bugs that they may have in them. we use them for another twenty years or so until we can develop Anti-Matter rockets and work the bug's out of our Anti-Matter rockets.

We stay with Anti-Matter powered rockets for say another twenty years or so.

Every five years or so, we have a meeting to discuss our progress and to update our strategy for going into space. While we are developing fusion power we have a break throw in the Anti-Matter department and we may decide to go from the fission powered rocket to the Anti-Matter rocket and skip the fusion powered rocket, because Anti-Matter would be a better choice for rockets.

So I'm not locked in to or committed to any particular design or engine type for either for next generation shuttle, deep space space ship or any thing else for that matter. I see every idea that you throw out there as a future museum piece in about a twenty year time frame. The only reason that I'm interested in Chemical Rockets and Fission Rockets, is because that is our current level of technology that we have to use if we want to stay in space. You show me a more efficient way a doing it past just having a theory of how it will work and can put together a working module and do a prove concept works, then I'm not interested in Chemical Rockets and I'm not interested in fission powered rocket either. But, until that time, we use chemical rocket and fission rockets, because we have that technologies already developed and in our hands. So that is our developed technologies that we are going to be using and then we will switch to the next new technology that has been developed to replace our old technology which will be less efficient and cost more to run than this new technology that is coming on line.

Like I said, I'm not looking for a single Golden Bullet to make space colonization happen, but if a Golden Bullet were to come along, I would reject it either.

Larry,

Martin_Tristar · 2005-01-20 00:46:23

The Orion Project and derivatives are the best hope for expanding Humanity into space for colonization until we have other technological innovation.

But , before we go with those engine systems we need the infrastructure in earth space from space stations, space labs , space construction platforms and also on the moon for material resources for the development process before we look at the expansion of humanity in any meaningful way including Mars colonization.

We need to support our people on Mars, in transit and also the explorer vessels past mars. We need communication infrastructure and navigation infrastructure and optical monitoring systems to manage the long term and not the short term " wagon train " journeys, they might be explorer vessel short term missions , not colonization missions for permanent settlement development.

When development of space vessels - dadelaus probe was several hundred meters long and to build that vessel you need major infrastructure, to build an explorer vessel 100+ meters long ( to carry 6-12 crew ) will require space dock facilities on the space station or separate ( again more infrastructure ) we need to push the required infrastructure before the missions for space.

We need more computer modelling of the Orion and derviative engine designs and virtual space testing, Alot of the computer testing systems don't exist and need development. The complexity of the engine designs will require complex computer monitoring , control and management systems again don't exist. When we have done all that development and virtual testing we will be on more developed in space to build a test vehicle in earth orbit or standalone platform.

But at the end of the day, we want to expand humaniy into space and we need the infrastructure , governments, corporates, and individuals to work together to meet this objective.

Euler · 2005-01-20 01:17:22

When development of space vessels - dadelaus probe was several hundred meters long and to build that vessel you need major infrastructure, to build an explorer vessel 100+ meters long ( to carry 6-12 crew ) will require space dock facilities on the space station or separate ( again more infrastructure ) we need to push the required infrastructure before the missions for space.

For exploration it would make sense to start with small, unmanned probes.

Martin_Tristar · 2005-01-20 05:51:04

Euler,

I understand that !!!!

You could develop larger unmanned vessels with larger information systems and other scientific instrument packages and also remote cargo pods to transport satellites for deployment into orbits or land unmanned probes to the surface of planetary bodies. These unmanned vessels would used in multi-mission activities or deployment of navigation and / or communication networks within our solar system and beyond without the use of manned exploration vehicles.

All this happens before we could leave the earth space !!! Allowing us to test the new systems, engine design, gravitational systems and also development of newer technology that would enhance the manned missions to Mars and beyond.

My previous statements was explaining the requirements for manned space exploration outside earth space and the various infrastructure requirements needed to support the manned activities, and the infrastructure for testing the Orion Engine , derivatives and other facets that are required for humanities' expansion into our solar system.

Martian Republic · 2005-01-20 10:11:43

Euler,
I understand that !!!!
You could develop larger unmanned vessels with larger information systems and other scientific instrument packages and also remote cargo pods to transport satellites for deployment into orbits or land unmanned probes to the surface of planetary bodies. These unmanned vessels would used in multi-mission activities or deployment of navigation and / or communication networks within our solar system and beyond without the use of manned exploration vehicles.
All this happens before we could leave the earth space !!! Allowing us to test the new systems, engine design, gravitational systems and also development of newer technology that would enhance the manned missions to Mars and beyond.
My previous statements was explaining the requirements for manned space exploration outside earth space and the various infrastructure requirements needed to support the manned activities, and the infrastructure for testing the Orion Engine , derivatives and other facets that are required for humanities' expansion into our solar system.

Oh, somebody else that understand the need to build infrastructure, besides me. You realize there there going to have to be more government funding than what NASA is currently getting to accomplish what your suggestion that we do. I agree with you that what you are talking about doing needs to be done. But, the whole financial picture of the United States is going to have to be redone to accomplish a mission this big. We are basically going to have to double the size of the U.S. Economy to be able to mission this big. I have not problem with that, but, it means a whole bunch of new high paying jobs will have to be created to accomplish our goals.

Larry,

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