What could have been.......a MARS colony by now.....

[MKSheppard]

http://www.washtimes.com/books/20020825-31834242.htm

One abortive effort by the Air Force to impress the president featured a $75,000 Corvette-sized scale model of an Orion-based space battleship bristling with weapons that could dominate space. Instead of being impressed, Kennedy was appalled, and nobody knows where the model is today. Then the fears over fallout that inspired the 1962 Test Ban Treaty made nuclear explosions in space a no-no, and the project faded away, finally ending in 1965.

Imagine, if JFK had OKed the project...the USSR would have gone ahead
with it, and space would be militarized.....and we'd be moving ahead,
discovering new tech, in a rat race to beat the Evil Empire......

[Sea Skimmer]

Just another reason why JFK was likely the worst American president of the century. He pissed away Americas technological, Nuclear and political advantages over the USSR in favor of creating a conventional army to be sent to die in Vietnam.

[Patrick Degan]

You'll pardon me, but it's hard for me to take pronouncements from the pages of The Moonie Times seriously, particularly when their writers can't seem to be bothered to get their facts straight and devote themselves more to parroting the present political gospel of the Republican Party over and above such trivialities as journalistic accuracy or the Truth.

I'm well aware of the history of Project Orion, and I'm looking forward to George Dyson's book on the subject, which is certain to be a most fascinating read. But the plain fact is that the design, on retrospect, is a very inefficent system. A steady-state reaction for nuclear space propulsion is always the better method, not only in terms of engine efficency but overall engineering of the vehicle; particularly when it avoids the inevitable problems of frame stress from multiple fission pulses.

However, the article in question gets several things glaringly wrong:

Once the Kennedy administration took office, the MacNamara-era Air Force was told to take its eyes off space and NASA was given authority over the space program.

Factual error number one. While NASA did indeed gain authority over the civilian space programme, the USAF and ARPA continued to have considerable control over their own space projects and military applications of space technology

There, Orion had to battle seasoned bureaucrats pushing rival programs, not just Apollo, but a nuclear propulsion project based on the absurdity of a flying reactor.

Factual error number two. The "absurd flying reactor" was, in fact, the other nuclear space propulsion system then being developed for possible use: NERVA. The NERVA system involved the use of a small nuclear reactor as a heat source. Propellant mass (any liquid or gas would do, but the designs called for liquid hydrogen) would be heated into a superhot jet of gas which would be expelled out of the thrust chamber at high velocity. Initial tests indicated a potential performance of twice the ISP of the Saturn V, which was considered quite promising. NERVA managed to endure in development until 1970.

One abortive effort by the Air Force to impress the president featured a $75,000 Corvette-sized scale model of an Orion-based space battleship bristling with weapons that could dominate space. Instead of being impressed, Kennedy was appalled, and nobody knows where the model is today. Then the fears over fallout that inspired the 1962 Test Ban Treaty made nuclear explosions in space a no-no, and the project faded away, finally ending in 1965.

It doesn't surprise me. The scheme was ludicrous and very easily countered by one atomic bomb —far cheaper than a manned orbital battleship or bomb platform. All the "space battleship" would have achieved was the explosion of a whole new arms race on top of the one that was already underway.

It is interesting to speculate about what might have happened had the spirit of the 1960s been in sync with Project Orion. With a Reaganesque president, we might have had not just Saturn by 1970, but even Star Wars and a Soviet Union pushed into bankruptcy a quarter-century earlier.

Here's where the Moonie Times writer veers into a political polemic (and probably was typing one-handed for this part of his piece) with lots of what-if bullshit which offers a fantasy USA-triumphant scenario as the only possibility. Unfortunately, once you invoke "what-if", you open the door to all the possibilities.

Yes, we might have reached Saturn by 1970, had Star Wars and the Soviet Union pushed into bankruptcy a quarter-century earlier. We might also have pushed ourselves into a depression from the costs of a triple arms-race, negated any impetus towards arms control, and might have brought on the very war we managed to avoid with two superpowers in a considerably more hostile posture trying to stack up more bombs in orbit than the other.

On the other hand, the proliferation of mini-nukes might have made Osama bin Laden and his like an even bigger threat than they are today.

So, on reflection, the writer sacrifices the point he seems to be trying to make by pointing out that not going ahead with Orion may have been a good thing after all. Must be a fresh graduate from propaganda school to make such an amateur mistake.

Mr. Dyson does not discuss these possibilities

Probably because they're ludicrous on their face.

but the concluding chapter of his enthralling book suggests that Orion, a project that was ahead of its time, may yet bear fruit in man's exploration of the cosmos.

Frankly, I think Daedalus, ion drive, and the sailcraft concept provide more promise for advanced spacecraft propulsion over Orion.

Just another reason why JFK was likely the worst American president of the century. He pissed away Americas technological, Nuclear and political advantages over the USSR in favor of creating a conventional army to be sent to die in Vietnam.

In a word, bullshit. For a start, America already had a very large conventional army which it had been building back up since 1948. Secondly, Kennedy was leaning toward reducing American involvement on the ground in Vietnam (an involvement initiated by his predecessor, BTW). Thirdly, the United States had a massive military and technological advantage over the Soviet Union which was widening, not narrowing —one of the reasons why Khruchev attempted his dangerous Cuba missile gamble in the first place. Kennedy avoided nuclear war over Cuba. He rebuffed the Soviet attempt to shut down Berlin. And it was Kennedy's space programme which beat the Soviets to the moon.

[MKSheppard]

You'll pardon me, but it's hard for me to take pronouncements from the pages of The Moonie Times seriously, particularly when their writers can't seem to be bothered to get their facts straight and devote themselves more to parroting the present political gospel of the Republican Party over and above such trivialities as journalistic accuracy or the Truth.

It's either the Times or the putrid liberal sack of shit that is the Washington
Compost.

Bill Gertz, anyone?

[Patrick Degan]

My dear boy, if the Post really was a liberal paper, Dubya would have to start worrying about calls for his impeachment.

[MKSheppard]

My dear boy, if the Post really was a liberal paper, Dubya would have to start worrying about calls for his impeachment.

Ah, the typical strawman argument.

Since you live in Louisania, it's hard for you to come by the Compost
daily. I get both papers, the Times and the Post, to crosscheck them
against each other.

The Post is always for gun control, affirmative action, environmentalism,
abortion, and basically every plank of the Democratic Party, while the
Times runs on basically every plank of the Republican Party.

The two papers also run stories opposite each other, and they provide
a truly FREE press. I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a city
where there's only one major newspaper and having to put up with it's
political leanings.

EDIT; And I guess you call the NYT the New Jew Times too...

Quite frankly, I don't care WHO owns the paper, I just care about
the politics they put on their pages.

[Patrick Degan]

My dear boy, if the Post really was a liberal paper, Dubya would have to start worrying about calls for his impeachment.

Ah, the typical strawman argument.

Yes. Yours, namely.

Since you live in Louisania, it's hard for you to come by the Compost
daily. I get both papers, the Times and the Post, to crosscheck them
against each other.

Well, y'see, there's this wonderful thing called the internet. You may have heard of it. And on this internet, it's possible to find what are called "online editions" of these here newspapers. Oh, that's in addition to the editions sold in every newsstand.

The Post is always for gun control, affirmative action, environmentalism,
abortion, and basically every plank of the Democratic Party, while the
Times runs on basically every plank of the Republican Party.

The Post also hasn't run a decent piece of investigative journalism since the 70s. They do not look into the doings of the current administration as an organ of a free press is supposed to, nor does it question the pronouncements coming out of 1600 these days. In short, the Post has been inclined, like most of the press in this country, to give Dubya all the Lewinsky he could ever want.

The two papers also run stories opposite each other, and they provide a truly FREE press.

An amusing statement about a newspaper owned by a mind-control cult.

I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a city where there's only one major newspaper and having to put up with it's
political leanings.

Yes, it is a bit irritating to put up with conservative drivel in print on a daily basis as well as sloppy editing and layout, but you take the bad along with the good in this life.

EDIT; And I guess you call the NYT the New Jew Times too...

No, I leave that sort of thing to your side of the aisle, thank you.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

On an unrelated and uncalled for note, have either of you read Bias by Bernard Goldberg, or Slander by Ann Coulter? I sure haven't, but I heard they explain the bias in the media. Or the Media Research Center, who are, IMFUO, a bunch of "Blame the media-firsters" that consider themselves conservatives because of their dissatisfaction with the news reporters.

[EmperorChrostas the Cruel]

Orion Drive is one of those ideas, that seems good, until you get practical.

First, just how many nukes going off in the atmosphere do you want? The less, the better. RADIATION. If you thought that fossil fuels were dirty, and dangerous! Or was this intended to be a one shot, put something huge in orbit stunt, ala "Footfall", by Larry Niven? If sucsessful, it wouldn't BE a one use only technology, others would use it! Hell, the Solviets would go for it in a big way. Fuck the environment. We have a war to win.
The mess we could make of our ecosystem, in the pursuit of short term gain. Then, there is all the EMPs being generated, with every launch. The perfect time to launch a surprise blitzcrieg missile attack.

Orion Drive is for emergency use only. Like stopping a dinosaur killer.

[Patrick Degan]

Orion Drive is one of those ideas, that seems good, until you get practical.

First, just how many nukes going off in the atmosphere do you want? The less, the better. RADIATION. If you thought that fossil fuels were dirty, and dangerous!

They did discuss actually detonating small nuke charges in atmosphere in the early proposals for the project. As the design process evolved, it was eventually realised that a model which would go to the planets would likely have to be built in orbit. The scaled-down models from that version, according to the history of the project, were to have been boosted to orbit by up to three Saturn V rockets.

The mess we could make of our ecosystem, in the pursuit of short term gain. Then, there is all the EMPs being generated, with every launch. The perfect time to launch a surprise blitzcrieg missile attack.

EMP is an effect which is generated only with a high-powered nuke blast in high atmosphere. The 0.1KT charges planned for Orion wouldn't have pumped out anywhere near the amount of energy you'd need for a crippling EMP burst. But the idea of banging off mininukes in atmosphere is pretty silly on its face.

Orion Drive is for emergency use only. Like stopping a dinosaur killer.

Well, it wouldn't matter too much if whatever rocket you use to intercept the asteroid isn't carrying enough explosive power to completely pulverise it. The design of the rocket is immaterial in that equation.

The primary problems with Orion are the essential inefficency of the entire system to begin with and the fact that the spaceframe would be subjected to repeated instances of high shock-stress, and that can never be a good thing from any standpoint. You've got a propulsion scheme which attacks the structural integrity of the craft itself even with all the inertial dampening built in, which means a very limited lifespan for the ship. And when you consider the likelihood that an Orion would be put together by the Lowest Bidder... Well, I know I wouldn't want to try riding to Saturn in the damn thing.