Project Orion Ground Launch.

Hi

I think that both the space elevator and Project Orion are theoretically sound ideas. The space elevator, although within reach, has carbon nanotube composites that are needed for its construction that still have not attained the required tensile strength to allow for an Earth to orbit space elevator. It may become feasable in the near future due to the fast-paced discoveries being made in the field of nanotechnology these days. Nevertheless, the technology behind Project Orion has been proven. You can get a lot of payload into space using a large spacecraft with nuclear bombs in it, yes.

As many of you mentioned its pobably a big problem because of radiation and so on. I do not know enough on the subject of radiation from Project Orion to comment. I suppose that is one of the reasons it was discontinued, that and the cold war; They must have feared a nuclear retaliation from the Soviet Union or something.

I think it is only human to have interest, and get a psychological kick, just as anybody would from talking and poking at people, as all humans strive for recognition to some point or another---or for that matter, psychological "fun" with other people such as playing around, etc----I would defenitely get a 'kick' and raise my level of 'intrigue' if we could go into space and start colonies up there at a reasonable cost. If this could be accomplished by reasonable means, I would defenitely want to explore these possibilities. However, I recommend working this century on more down to earth initiatives such as revolutions in education using cheap latopts such as the ones developed at MIT (worth $100) for the worlds poor. I think these initiatives and more education would be a lot better than the innefficient 'space exploration initiative' that President Bush has initiated.

Nevertheless, there is one very good reason of 'down to earth benefits' using cheap access to space technology:

1-beaming cheap energy down to earth. It is theoretically possible, according to what I have read on google news, that a 'solar sattelite' could concentrate a beam of light from the sun and concentrate it on a point on the earth to create electricity---maybe through fusion or just plainly heating water to turn to steam and then turn a turbine. The problem has been that they are too large to be placed in orbit economically.

If such technology becomes accessible we could potentially place many solar satelites in space that would end our dependence on fossil fuels---we could I don't know--get the solar sattelites to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, etc---use solar cell plants--where beams could be concentrated, etc.

2. Disposal of waste

It would be very beneficial to dispose waste for reasons that are reasonable.

 

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o yea, and furthermore, lol,

that is my stance--I don't know exactly --however

what about Project Orion + Scramjet. You could use a nuclear reactor to ionize the oxygen and expand it as fuel--This could be used to propell a spacecraft. The advantange of this is that the chemical propellant would be the oxygen in the atmosphere--you would not need to carry it---the oxygen would become accessible through the fissile material in the reactor which would heat and accelerate air in a wind pipe at speeds at which a scramjet would normally operate---The only problem is that I have no idea whether it would work ---If any of you have a cousin at NASA or whatever, tell him about it--I am a space enthusiast and would like to know more--

email at: tiberianfallout@hotmail.com

Cheers,

TB

 

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At the moment my old memory is giving me more gaps than facts: I vaguely recall that the USAF, in the '60s, built and ground tested both a fission jet engine and a fission rocket motor. The B 70 Valkyrie was supposed to be developed to use the jet engine(s).

The jet engine used fission heat to heat air which was its reaction mass.

The rocket, I seem to remember, used liquid hydrogen, heated by the fission heat, purely as reaction mass. Of course, in the interest of safety from chemical explosion, water could surely have been used as reaction mass.

About the same time that public outcry killed the rampant use of fission, the XB 70 crashed on a test flight. End of project on two fronts.

I strongly advocate the greatest caution to prevent further destruction of the environment and to prevent human endangerment. I think flying an atom bomb rocket would be a very, very unsafe thing to do.

 

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The general idea you're talking about was called Project Kiwi. Later the work went on as Project Nerva. Kiwi was named after the flightless bird of the same name. It was set up on a static test stand thrusting straight up. It used liquid hydrogen as a propellent. They never really solved the problem of erosion of the heating chamber and cracks in the moderator (graphite) had a bad habit of releasing nasty amounts of radioactive material.

I think Nerva is still active, at least it was a few years ago iirc. I don't think anyone has tried your idea of sourcing the propellent from the atmosphere. Given the very high temps required, I doubt it would be practical.

 

Thanks for filling in memory gaps for me. I don't deserve credit (?) for the jet idea. I read about either a proposal or actual testing of such a scheme as conceived by an inventor other than myself.

 

Well, the old man's memory is not as bad as he remembered it being.

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Kiwi Nerva is alive and well. Google: Triton rocket.

Fission jet engine was real. http://www.nuclear.com/history/Nuclear_airplanes.html

 

Thanks for reply--I did not know of a jet-fission engine---nice. However, it seems from what you have described that it would require propellant such as hydrogen to be carried---this does not seem very practical. I proposed instead of a jet engine a scramjet----which is like a jet but uses oxygen from the atmosphere as fuel and operates at much higher speeds (Mach 7-22) . The fission would create an air thrust infront of the scramjet to simulate the speeds at which the scramjet starts operating.

However if the jet engine idea didn't work it seems a scramjet would not work either (since a scramjet is just a permutation of complexity higher than a jet engine). Nevertheless, thanks for the info.

By the way--GE is working on a pulse detonation engine, which is a tube that uses the vacuum effect with pulses of fuel to propell a craft. I think it would be interesting to combine these technologies (pulse detonation + scramjet) with small nuclear reactors, etc.

TB

 

Both the US and USSR conducted rigorous research and development programs in this field, but ultimately cancelled their respective programs, due to technical difficulties and growing safety concerns...

I got this from your post CANGAS---it seems your right, they did try it with ramjets (scramjets) --- Nevertheless, I think that with current developements in nanotechnology (carbon nanotube composites and graphite films) and more technically superior technologies such as more sophisticated computers (etc) It just may become possible one day. But whatever--that is just speculation.

TB

 

Both the US and USSR conducted rigorous research and development programs in this field, but ultimately cancelled their respective programs, due to technical difficulties and growing safety concerns...

 

Preliminary work was done on developing nuclear powered rockets, jet engines, and ramjet engines during the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s (1, 2, 3). Both the US and USSR conducted rigorous research and development programs in this field, but ultimately cancelled their respective programs, due to technical difficulties and growing safety concerns...

NEPA to ANP

 

O and I don't recommend a nuclear airplane for regular flights...that would release lots of radiation and it would be prohibitively expensive--however, this would be the ideal way of developing (in my view) spaceships that would fire up to space--and carry more than 6 people up to space and be reasonably priced (carry more on the order fo tons to space)---this or the space elevator--or just a full-fledged project Orion, seems to me the only things that would open up space to economic and practical developement. Besides, that is what seems to power spaceships in star wars, a nuclear drive with a a sort of jet engine--running on alcohol + rubber propellant judging from the color.

TB

 

Nuclear-powered drone aircraft on drawing board

Not a passenger jet yet but let's wait a few years and see what comes next.

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Technically the drone isnt nuclear (fission) powered, it heats up air using gamma rays released from Hafnium 178 (an isotope) when its bombarded with xrays.

Even if it got shot down the H178 is only mildly radioactive and wouldnt cause much concern, unless you decided to xray a sample

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I remember reading somewhere you have to pump up the energy level of H177 or 176 (dont remenber exacly) to get 178 by bombarding it in an accelerator.

Gonna have to google for more of it