Not for military purposes but solely for space travel. They should only be used when far enough from earths orbit that fallout will not be an issue. Carl Sagan once said it is the most appropriate use of nuclear weapons. It's a shame that they've been banned in this way. The Orion never took off. Anyone else agree?

Id like to see a 2016 Science based study on that wild idea from project Orion.
Detonating nukes behind a space craft does not sound like a safe idea. And how much shielding would be needed?

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Old James

Here's a couple of doco's on Project Orion watch them they should answer your questions ,
I think Orion was a good idea but can't see it being developed the green lefty tree huggers wouldn't be very happy ;-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEtaQpHBP4U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYoLcJuBtOw

With all the natural harmful radiation in space I doubt that setting off a few nukes would make any difference. After all every star is basically a gigantic hydrogen bomb or something worse.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

I'm watching the first one of those videos right now.

Sounds like a good way to blast something off, but what about the cruising speed?

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Unlike in some science fiction in the real world you don't need to apply power to maintain a cruise speed, only to accelerate or decelerate.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Not for military purposes but solely for space travel. They should only be used when far enough from earths orbit that fallout will not be an issue. Carl Sagan once said it is the most appropriate use of nuclear weapons. It's a shame that they've been banned in this way. The Orion never took off. Anyone else agree?

I saw Sagan speak in person twice. I am pretty darn certain he said the exact opposite. Do you have a link to a quote saying otherwise?

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

I saw Sagan speak in person twice.

Lucky you. :~)

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

I saw Sagan speak in person twice.

Lucky you. :~)

Live not too far away and have an intelligent father who knows letting his son see Sagan is a good idea, and ... .

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

The Orion project is a good idea but the problem is Planet Earth is just not ready for nukes to be used in space .

Why , well at the moment the military strategy is he whom owns the high ground has all the power in a war . AKA: the carpet bombing off Vietnam and now the bombing of ISIL even thou it's a debatable strategy anyway and remember all military's have the same idea's and types of strategy.

Until you can go from 1 country to another without a visa AKA: open borders the Earth is just not ready to put Nukes in space .

Imagine what Putin would do if there are satellites with nukes on board them or ISIL would do if they could Hack or highjack a satellite with nukes .

Pity we are just not ready yet for such a bold project .

Anyway buy the time we are ready it will be surpassed buy better tech like antigrav once we find that elusive Graviton particle and figure out how to stop it's effects

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Thank's Cobber now I got something to watch for the next couple of hours (already downloaded me shows and watch them so bored as :))

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On the last page of a classic book about Astronomy going back to 1974, there is a futuristic painting of a spaceship traveling through space.

This spaceship is being fueled or having its propulsion through space by either an ion or photon engine, or something similar.

Gravity or even time itself may perhaps also be used for propulsion, but most likely a gravity field or the force which is reprsenting gravity needs to be present in order for this to be possible.

Cars and other vehicles still are typically run on gasonline or other flammables or propellants. Jet engines being used in planes could be having their engines being run in a somewhat different way.

For now other ways of traveling, including space travel, becomes either science fiction as a whole, or at least we are left with the rocket engine, which at times makes it possible to bring an object into considerable speed.

Because of that, nuclear weapons should be regarded as weapons of mass destruction and whether or not it is true that we ever was warned of using such weapons in space, or even return back to the Moon is probably something which may never be proven as well.

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle** wrote a scifi book, Footfall which features an Orion based craft.

**For those who read Byte in years gone by, Jerry Pournelle had a regular column in it.

You will need to build Orion in space ..

There would be to much radiation for it to take off from earth and that means taking nukes up there bug security risk

15,000 -150,000 ton lift off depending on it's size with nukes No thanks you can go for it if you want a nuke waste land

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