Dyson (was Re: [OT]Nukes.)

> On Mon, 11 Mar 2002, Derek Fulton wrote:

> At 04:40 10/03/02 -0500, Tomb wrote:

Freeman Dyson also designed, or helped design, the Orion spaceship. I'm sure
there's stuff on the web somewhere, but there's also a good book, "The
Starship & the Canoe".

Orion was going to use nukes or hydrogen bombs to launch & propel a very
large spaceship - and launch from the surface! The Atmospheric Test Ban
stuffed that idea, and the more sensible proposal to start the ship in orbit
was sunk by the various space weapon treaties.

In deep space (or at least from orbit) Orion is an interesting idea, and Dyson
developed his ship to the point where one might actually be buildable.

There's also his Dyson Sphere, of course. Mega-engineering at it's
finest!

Brian - yh728@victoria.tc.ca -
- http://wind.prohosting.com/~warbard/games.html -

> Cheers

> Orion was going to use nukes or hydrogen bombs to launch & propel a

The were probably buildable back then, but killed by public concern of nukes.
NASA is looking at the use of nukes for space propulsion agian.

In a message dated 3/11/02 3:55:51 AM Mountain Standard Time,
> ias@sprintmail.com writes:

> > Orion was going to use nukes or hydrogen bombs to launch & propel a

Actually the Orion never got far enough to register on the public until after
it was killed. Realistically, it could be argued that for the same
contamination of Hiroshima&Nagasaki, we could get a million tons of space
craft into orbit. It might even, (if you will excuse the pun please)
"fly"
with the public.

As for the new push for Nukes in space, they are talking power reactors and
Nuclear electric propulsion. High power Ion and Plasma drives actually.

(Though again, if we want to go the conspiracy route.. it could all be just to
get power reactors for those Star Wars battle sats:o)

Randy