Historian George Dyson's talk on Project Orion details the thinking that went into the planning of one of America's most ambitious space projects ever. The project was initiated in 1957 and was finally shelved in 1965. Dyson's father, physicist Freeman Dyson (of Dyson Sphere fame) was a member of the team.
The overall concept was that of a giant spacecraft capable of being launched to the outer planets, namely Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in this case, which was to use fission explosions to propel it through space. More ambitious plans which essentially turned the spacecraft into a starship, mandated the use of hydrogen fusion bombs, rather than fission bombs for propulsion. A number of events which came together in a sort of "perfect storm" led to the eventual termination of the project before any ships could be constructed.
Bombs were to be exploded at the rear of the spacecraft essentially pushing it along. Successful flight would have required the serial explosions of perhaps thousands of nuclear bombs, one at a time. Needless to say the ride would have been rather bumpy! And the spacecraft itself would have to be extremely massive in order to survive the explosions
Unlike the Saturn IB and V rockets which were being developed at roughly the same time by NASA, Orion was being supported by ARPA and the US Air Force. Military projects such as this are often cloaked by many levels of security and secrecy, in contrast to more open civilian-owned projects.
Economic, technological, and political forces worked against this concept, however. From an economic perspective, the cost would have been enormous, dwarfing that of the expensive Apollo moon shots.
The technological hurdles were equally insurmountable; after all this design was being designed to use hundreds, if not thousands of Hiroshima-type bombs. The rear of the craft had to be engineered in such a way as to take these explosions in stride, harnessing them for forward momentum, while protecting the crew from radiation. That required tremendous advances in metallurgy, thermodynamics and related fields, and computing power far in excess of that required for a moon flight accomplished with chemical rockets.
On the political front, the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 also helped bring an end to the project. This treaty banned nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, in space, and under water.
Project Orion is being studied today as a possible "off the shelf" component of a solution to the problem of asteroids and other large space bodies that may eventually be found to be on a collision course with Earth.
The overall concept was that of a giant spacecraft capable of being launched to the outer planets, namely Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in this case, which was to use fission explosions to propel it through space. More ambitious plans which essentially turned the spacecraft into a starship, mandated the use of hydrogen fusion bombs, rather than fission bombs for propulsion. A number of events which came together in a sort of "perfect storm" led to the eventual termination of the project before any ships could be constructed.
Bombs were to be exploded at the rear of the spacecraft essentially pushing it along. Successful flight would have required the serial explosions of perhaps thousands of nuclear bombs, one at a time. Needless to say the ride would have been rather bumpy! And the spacecraft itself would have to be extremely massive in order to survive the explosions
Unlike the Saturn IB and V rockets which were being developed at roughly the same time by NASA, Orion was being supported by ARPA and the US Air Force. Military projects such as this are often cloaked by many levels of security and secrecy, in contrast to more open civilian-owned projects.
Economic, technological, and political forces worked against this concept, however. From an economic perspective, the cost would have been enormous, dwarfing that of the expensive Apollo moon shots.
The technological hurdles were equally insurmountable; after all this design was being designed to use hundreds, if not thousands of Hiroshima-type bombs. The rear of the craft had to be engineered in such a way as to take these explosions in stride, harnessing them for forward momentum, while protecting the crew from radiation. That required tremendous advances in metallurgy, thermodynamics and related fields, and computing power far in excess of that required for a moon flight accomplished with chemical rockets.
On the political front, the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 also helped bring an end to the project. This treaty banned nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, in space, and under water.
Project Orion is being studied today as a possible "off the shelf" component of a solution to the problem of asteroids and other large space bodies that may eventually be found to be on a collision course with Earth.
No comments:
Post a Comment