Project Orion: APR V1N5 released

Orionblamblam

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Issue V1N5 of Aerospace Projects Review has been released. This is the biggest issue to date and includes a very large article on the 10-meter designs of Project Orion, both USAF and NASA. Stuff that almost certainly you've never seen before...

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Also: an article by Dennis R. Jenkins about a 1963 North American Aviation concept for a two-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle.

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Also also: an article by Bill Slayton on the 1956 Lockheed CL-407 VTOL strike/recon fighter concept.

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http://www.up-ship.com/eAPR/index.htm

Check it out...

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Scott,

who's the author of that Orion rendering?. It's amazing!!
 
I received my CD-ROM with APR V1N5 two days ago. Brilliant! I've always been a big fan of the Orion project (propelling an interplanetary spaceship by setting off nukes behind it ? I mean, how can you NOT love something like that ?), and most of the stuff in the APR articles is something I've never seen before.

Too bad the details of the pulse units are still very, very classified.

Oh, and every time I hear or read of the Orion, I get this image in my head: One of the 8m Orions going hell-bent for Mars, with "ACME ATOMIC ROCKETSHIP" stenciled down the side, and a grinning Wile E. Coyote at the controls.....

Regards,

Thomas L. Nielsen
Denmark
 
Lauge said:
Too bad the details of the pulse units are still very, very classified.

I'd prefer them being classified as long as possible, though...it would be enough several backpackers for a whole Denmark after a new portion of caricatures...=(
 
flateric said:
Lauge said:
Too bad the details of the pulse units are still very, very classified.

I'd prefer them being classified as long as possible, though...it would be enough several backpackers for a whole Denmark after a new portion of caricatures...=(

Yes...that affair with the caricatures is another sad example that the press in general suffers from a deplorable responsibility deficiency. It seems they haven't quite understood, or chooses to ignore, that "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press", like all freedoms, includes the freedom to take the consequences. Or, in the words of Terry Pratchett in "Feet of Clay": Freedom without limits is just a word.

Anyway, as for the Orion pulse units as blueprints for backpack nukes (especially as regards their use by "irregular" forces) I don't really see this as a big risk. Those who have the knowledge and technology to use such blueprints to build a compact nuclear weapon most likely (as I see it) already has that capability, regardless of the pulse unit information. For everyone else, anthrax, GB or radiological weapons are just as compact and waaayyyyy less complicated and expensive.

Regards,

Thomas L. Nielsen
Denmark
 
Lauge said:
Yes...that affair with the caricatures is another sad example that the press in general suffers from a deplorable responsibility deficiency.

Indeed! How *dare* the press publish anything that might upset someone? Hasn't the European press learned that "accomodation" and "appeasement" are really the only ways to deal with people who threaten them with irrational ideologies?

Anyway, as for the Orion pulse units as blueprints for backpack nukes (especially as regards their use by "irregular" forces) I don't really see this as a big risk. Those who have the knowledge and technology to use such blueprints to build a compact nuclear weapon most likely (as I see it) already has that capability...

Not quite. Orion pulse units were really quite special devices. Along with being small, they were,a ccording to Ted Taylor (the nuclear weapons designer), they were incredibly efficient. The yields were small, measured in fractions of a kiloton, but given the very small amounts of fisile material, they would be, if put into serial production, relatively dirt cheap. For the price of one 50 kiloton bomb, you could perhaps have one hundred 0.5 kiloton bombs... and this larger number of smaller bombs would be able to devastate a *far* greater surface area. To first order, a bomb with 100 times the yield will damage 20 times the area of a smaller bomb. So if you have 100 little bombs, you'll trash 5 times the area. Plus, you'll be able to do it more efficiently... one big bomb will be blocked by hills and valleys, but if you have little bombs you can more efficiently cover those areas. Also, one .5 kiloton bomb goes off in the center of a major city, that major city, event hough not destroyed, will essentially empty. Look at how Manhattan was evacuated on 9-11. And if you have one hundred little bombs, you could shut down one hundred cities.
 
Mmm, could they be used as buried bunker-busters ? Burrowing warhead (hypercavitating) and then, bam! Little or no fallout. Third best after a pure-fusion very low yield device and a directed nuclear explosion (hollow charge).
 
Skybolt said:
Mmm, could they be used as buried bunker-busters ? Burrowing warhead (hypercavitating) and then, bam! Little or no fallout.

Use two bombs: a Casaba Howitzer to blast a pathway, and a burrowing bomb a split second later.


The problem with penetrator bombs is that penetration depth is *seriously* limited. But if you've got something like Deep Digger, where you actually tunnel/drill/burrow your way down rather than try to punch your way down, you can apparently get some impressive depths. And then a series of sub-kiloton devices, properly placed, would set one one *hell* of a shockwave, capable of crushing pretty much anything, and without a whole lot of gas escape.
 
Orionblamblam said:
Lauge said:
Yes...that affair with the caricatures is another sad example that the press in general suffers from a deplorable responsibility deficiency.

Indeed! How *dare* the press publish anything that might upset someone? Hasn't the European press learned that "accomodation" and "appeasement" are really the only ways to deal with people who threaten them with irrational ideologies?

Hmm...knowing full well that this is well outside the actual topic of this thread, I'd still like to point out that this wasn't exactly what I meant. So the Danish press published the drawings, fair enough, Freedom of Expression allows them to do that. But when it then turned out that they had PO'ed about a billion people worldwide (most of them very peaceful people, who would not dream of threatening anyone, let alone bomb them), and cost several Danish companies millions in lost exports, then what ? Not once (as far as I know) did the Danish press show any kind of responsibility towards what they had wrought. Did they intend this ? Did they care ? Who knows. All the press seemed to do was hide behind the government, shouting "Freedom of speech, Freedom of the press" over and over like a bunch of demented parrots.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand: I would still tend to think, that anyone with the ressources and technology to construct a working, high-efficiency mini-nuke based on Orion pulse-unit blueprints wouldn't need those blueprints in the first place.

Regards

Thomas L. Nielsen
Denmark
 
Lauge said:
All the press seemed to do was hide behind the government, shouting "Freedom of speech, Freedom of the press" over and over like a bunch of demented parrots.

Point of order: if you publish a *cartoon* and a large number of people turn violent over it due to their ideology... maybe the ones talking about "freedom of speech" aren't the "demented parrots."

The incident turned out to be very important and in fact *positive.* It showed the world that there are a vast number of people who are just plain crazy, and murderously so. This is the sort of information people really aught to have.

I would still tend to think, that anyone with the ressources and technology to construct a working, high-efficiency mini-nuke based on Orion pulse-unit blueprints wouldn't need those blueprints in the first place.

Probably very incorrect. Orion pulse units were the product of twenty years of concerted American nuclear weapons design, testing and refinement. Proper blueprints of an advanced nuclear warhead could give, say, Iran or North Korea the equivalent of a century or more of their own development effort.
 
Orionblamblam said:
Lauge said:
All the press seemed to do was hide behind the government, shouting "Freedom of speech, Freedom of the press" over and over like a bunch of demented parrots.

Point of order: if you publish a *cartoon* and a large number of people turn violent over it due to their ideology... maybe the ones talking about "freedom of speech" aren't the "demented parrots."

The incident turned out to be very important and in fact *positive.* It showed the world that there are a vast number of people who are just plain crazy, and murderously so. This is the sort of information people really aught to have.

I would still tend to think, that anyone with the ressources and technology to construct a working, high-efficiency mini-nuke based on Orion pulse-unit blueprints wouldn't need those blueprints in the first place.

Probably very incorrect. Orion pulse units were the product of twenty years of concerted American nuclear weapons design, testing and refinement. Proper blueprints of an advanced nuclear warhead could give, say, Iran or North Korea the equivalent of a century or more of their own development effort.

Not to mention the fact that the scientists developing the pulse units were able to test their theories with actual testing. Trying to duplicate that effort with no testing and no empirical data to develope code from would NOT be a walk in the park for even a developed country like Japan.
 
sferrin said:
Not to mention the fact that the scientists developing the pulse units were able to test their theories with actual testing. Trying to duplicate that effort with no testing and no emperical data to develope code from would NOT be a walk in the park for even a developed country like Japan.

And of course, it's harder still. Assume this:
1) The US had developed and put into serial production low-fissile, 500-ton yield pulse units that worked extremely reliably.
2) Someone had a set of full-size blueprint. Call it, a stack of 30 D-sized sheets.
3) SPECTRE or Saddam Hussein or Kim Jong Il of Babrbara Streisand or some other force for evil in the world steals said blueprints.

Can they build a bomb from them?

Well... given time and testing of their own. And perhaps not even then. Let's stipulate that the blueprints are dimensionally complete, precise and accurate. You *can* build every single component, and they'll simply fall together perfectly. But the high explosive is simply listed as "Composition XYZ, prepared via process 123. Align grain along Z-axis." What the hell is Comp XYZ, and what's the process that turns it into, apparently some sort of polymer such that it forms fibers? And the fisile material is simply listed as "LLNL product 47-B." Presumably plutonium... or is it? What isotope? What *mix* of isotopes? Is it an alloy of, say, Plutonium and Amerecium?

And one thing the blueprints might not say is that since "LLNL product 47-B" is an alloy of short-lived isotopes, the bomb has a shelf-life of six months. After that it goes "Splat" when fired.


Still, the knowledge that this bomb design will actually work would give any decent bomb development team a leg up. If they happen to have one or more particualrly clever member, or if their team of spies is on the job, the mysteries might well be resolved.
 
Yep, the short-lived transuranics "doping" of a plutonium or uranium bomb to reduce the critical mass weight has been discussed in the open literature. Probably it required a lot of testing to develop a workable product (or an enormous amount of computing time using very solid, experiment based, mathematical models). Little military value, high value for applications like pulse units (I doubt for terrorism, a lot of radioactive signature, I'd presume, and low availability level of knowledge on metallurgy of short lived transuranics, anyway)
 
i have read the Issue V1N5 of Aerospace Projects Review
COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL ;D
(include sferrin cover art:)

back to Nuke in hands of SPECTRE or Saddam Hussein (in South Park) or Kim Jong Il of Babrbara Streisand or Osama Ben Laden.

only Kim Jong Il made big bang (how ever was this nuclear or big pile of TNT ?)

Still, the knowledge that this bomb design will actually work would give any decent bomb development team a leg up. If they happen to have one or more particularly clever member, or if their team of spies is on the job, the mysteries might well be resolved.

Pakistan stundents visit the archive of Belgium Nuclear recarch Center SCK/CEN in MOL
used all lot the Photocopier maschine, the Fax, Scanner and send allot of big Email back home
it was a littel strange for worker at SCK/CEN
until Pakistan made first Nuke Test... (I got the story from worker at SCK/CEN)

but don't worry
Iranian stundents (and from others evil contury) can not visit the SCK/CEN in MOL

to Osama ben laden bunch of Idiots
they don't made a Nuke, let something look like a "dirty" bomb.
but Wat you wand bunch of guys with out proper education or no university degree ?

and even if Osama build a nuke all by him self,
then Tony Stark comes in his Ironman exoskeleton and beat Osama the crap out ;D
jep Osama build nuke is a Comic strip senario...

by the way, IRONMAN is a cool movie :D
 
This edition of APR is fantastic. There I was thinking after the last one, “I wish he’d included more on the <10 seat Orion?” This edition and the previous are a great visual and data rich companion to George Dyson’s “Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship”.

http://www.amazon.com/Project-Orion-Story-Atomic-Spaceship/dp/B000FUTQFU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209774028&sr=1-1
 

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