In the current year, would it be possible to use miniature atomic explosions as a propulsion method for high-speed, long-distance travel?
The spacecraft could still leave the atmosphere using conventional rocket propulsion methods, so radiations won't cause issues in the surroundings, then last stage would use the atomic propulsion only. As alternative the spacecraft could also be launched from a station in orbit already outside of the atmosphere.
Thoughts?
>>8003637 (cont) or even an hybrid system that uses both conventional combustion and atomic "ammo" if the material of the spacecraft can't withstand pressure from the atomic explosions for too long. I saw a video once about a similar atomic-bases propulsion but I forgot the name of the project, does anyone remember that? the spacecraft had a plate on the bottom that acted like a spring, pushing the craft using the motion generated by the pressure of the explosion below, the explosions were originated by some sort of atomic "bullets".
>>8003637
Project Orion
>>8003715
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29#Potential_problems
>Danger to human life was not a reason given for shelving the project. The reasons included lack of a mission requirement, the fact that no-one in the U.S. government could think of any reason to put thousands of tons of payload into orbit, the decision to focus on rockets for the Moon mission, and ultimately the signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963.
Would it be possible to resume this project with latest technologies and the possibility to launch the spacecraft from outside the atmosphere?
>A concept similar to Orion was designed by the British Interplanetary Society (B.I.S.) in the years 1973–1974. Project Daedalus was to be a robotic interstellar probe to Barnard's Star that would travel at 12% of the speed of light. In 1989, a similar concept was studied by the U.S. Navy and NASA in Project Longshot. Both of these concepts require significant advances in fusion technology, and therefore cannot be built at present, unlike Orion.
I never heard of these 2 projects, I'll look into them now.
>>8003730 (cont)
>From 1998 to the present, the nuclear engineering department at Pennsylvania State University has been developing two improved versions of project Orion known as Project ICAN and Project AIMStar using compact antimatter catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion units,[19] rather than the large inertial confinement fusion ignition systems proposed in Project Daedalus and Longshot.[20]
Oh well there it is, I guess the project isn't dead yet, very nice.
>>8003730
The real reason it was shelved was that it involved the construction of many, very small nuclear bombs.
To this day, the engineering solutions for the bomb construction are highly classified. Honestly, it is amazing that the government even acknowledged their existence.
>>8003755
What do you mean "small nuclear bombs"? I thought you needed a certain amount of uranium or plutonium before the bomb will work.
>>8003755
yeah looks like ICAN-II found an alternative:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICAN-II
>The proposed ACMF engine would require only 140 nanograms of antiprotons in conjunction with traditional fissionable fuel sources to allow a one-way transit time to Mars of 30 days. This is a considerable improvement over many other forms of propulsion that can be used for interplanetary missions, due to the high thrust-to-weight ratio and specific impulse of nuclear fuels. Some downsides to the design include the radiation hazards inherent to nuclear pulse propulsion as well as the limited availability of the antiprotons used to initialize the nuclear fission reaction.
>The ICAN-II also, in a sense, utilizes nuclear "bombs" for thrust. However, instead of regular fission bombs like the Orion would utilize, ICAN-II uses what are, essentially, a large number of very small hydrogen bombs, set off by a stream of anti-protons.
Sounds promising, though I can't find any recent news, or the search engine on their site is just bad: http://www.psu.edu/search/gss?query=ican-ii
>>8003764
You need enough neutron pressure, thats all. There are ways to reduce or even miniaturize a nuclear bomb design, project Orion took it to an extreme.
>>8003764
The Orion bombs were very special. they were *shaped* nuclear charges, so most of the energy was concentrated into a wide cone towards the pusher plate. More efficient.
It turned out that a slight modification to the design could direct the blast into a very *narrow* cone , creating a very powerful directed-energy weapon that fired a relativistic lance of nuclear flame. This was immediately classified under the codename CASABA HOWITZER. If they published the precise specifications of the Orion bombs, it would also reveal how to build CASABA-HOWITZER weapons, which is currently still secret.
>>8005501
>This was immediately classified under the codename CASABA HOWITZER. If they published the precise specifications of the Orion bombs, it would also reveal how to build CASABA-HOWITZER weapons, which is currently still secret.
