Orion Drive space battleship

[RexMundi]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

It's workable. Not to many annoying people issues one can't solve, by annihilating said annoying people. I like Nuclear Diplomacy. It's more trustworthy then a spoken word and a handshake or a bow. Speak Softly, Big Stick sorta thing.

 

~Rex

[Old Man]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

You could make a case for strategic nuclear weapons being a really strong geopolitical stabilizing force. Since 1945 there have been zero direct conflicts between major world powers, in favor of small proxy wars that are dreadfully unfortunate for the third world countries they are fought in. I have a hard time seeing how a U.S./Soviet conflict could have been avoided in the past 60 years without nuclear weapons.

[Sundog]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

You could make a case for strategic nuclear weapons being a really strong geopolitical stabilizing force. Since 1945 there have been zero direct conflicts between major world powers' date=' in favor of small proxy wars that are dreadfully unfortunate for the third world countries they are fought in. I have a hard time seeing how a U.S./Soviet conflict could have been avoided in the past 60 years [i']without[/i] nuclear weapons.

 

That's been my position for years. The strategic nuclear arsenals have been less weapons of war than tools to ensure peace.

[tkdguy]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

See' date=' that's exactly what President Kennedy said.[/quote']

 

$150 was out of JFK's price range? Nice to know there are people as dirt-poor as me.

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

It's workable. Not to many annoying people issues one can't solve' date=' by annihilating said annoying people. I like Nuclear Diplomacy. It's more trustworthy then a spoken word and a handshake or a bow. Speak Softly, Big Stick sorta thing.[/quote']

 

That lovely quote by Marcus in 'Babylon 5' comes to mind, something about ".. You get better results using a kind smile and a lump of two-by-four, than with just the kind smile..."

[RexMundi]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

I've got that quote on the Home-made GM screen of Bab5 quotes I used for doing all my Babylon 5 Demo stuff for Mongoose. It rings so true, heh.

 

~Rex

[Nyrath]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

Here are some notes on the "Landing Boats" on the Orion Battleship

http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=5167

[Cancer]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

You could make a case for strategic nuclear weapons being a really strong geopolitical stabilizing force. Since 1945 there have been zero direct conflicts between major world powers' date=' in favor of small proxy wars that are dreadfully unfortunate for the third world countries they are fought in. I have a hard time seeing how a U.S./Soviet conflict could have been avoided in the past 60 years [i']without[/i] nuclear weapons.

 

That's been my position for years. The strategic nuclear arsenals have been less weapons of war than tools to ensure peace.

 

When the Nuke Club was five or six I could agree. Now that every Tom, Jong-Il, and Ali have nukes or are on the verge of having them, I am much less certain.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

Wait...500 20 megaton nukes? Is that a typo? Those would have to weigh at least 1000 tons or more. I think one of the fears about orbital nukes(and FOBS-style, near coastline SLBM launches) was that warning time would be nearly non-existent. Hence the Russian "dead hand" system, among other things.

[Nyrath]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

Wait...500 20 megaton nukes? Is that a typo? Those would have to weigh at least 1000 tons or more.

No, no typo.

 

You don't understand. This is the Orion Drive we are talking about, here. It is the propulsion system above all that is optimized for moving huge payloads from surface to orbit. They had a design for a medium Orion ship that could transport an entire Lunar colony to the moon in one trip. The large model Orion could deliver 8,000,000 metric tons payload into low Earth orbit.

[Kristopher]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

Wait...500 20 megaton nukes? Is that a typo? Those would have to weigh at least 1000 tons or more. I think one of the fears about orbital nukes(and FOBS-style' date=' near coastline SLBM launches) was that warning time would be nearly non-existent. Hence the Russian "dead hand" system, among other things.[/quote']

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_(nuclear_war) for those who don't know about it.

[Nyrath]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

What on (or outside) Earth would we use them for?!?

 

Ah, I was correct. It was intended to be a part of M.A.D. doctrine

"The "Battleship" was the ultimate military version of this conceit. It was designed to carry thermonuclear firepower equivalent to three Polaris submarines as well as a variety of defensive weapons. Plans called for the Battleship to be stationed in a "Fail Safe" orbit around the Moon and only returned to Earth in the event of a "Doomsday" scenario in which case it would unleash nuclear death on America's enemies."

[RexMundi]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

No, no typo.

 

You don't understand. This is the Orion Drive we are talking about, here. It is the propulsion system above all that is optimized for moving huge payloads from surface to orbit. They had a design for a medium Orion ship that could transport an entire Lunar colony to the moon in one trip. The large model Orion could deliver 8,000,000 metric tons payload into low Earth orbit.

 

Gimme! We could be EVERYWHERE with these things in no time.

 

~Rex

[Kristopher]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

From the surface? Um... bombs... atmosphere... uh...

[RexMundi]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

Not as bad as what everyone seems to think, and there are ways to contain it. Want radiation, wear a tab next time you take a cross country flight. Hells, in a Titan III, the fuel and the oxidizer are more deadly and will do more damage to the country side then the warheads. They just don't have the pretty fireworks and the boom stick factor. We blew up all sorts of stuff for a long time all over the place, and we still get outdone by Mount St. Helens much less a real volcano. Still ain't seeing to many radioactive mutant zombies shambling about.

 

~Rex

[Nyrath]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

From the surface? Um... bombs... atmosphere... uh...

 

The hazard is from fallout. And if you launch from a huge steel pad or from the air, there basically is no fallout

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

There is also a variation of the theme floating around that uses an underground detonation to contain and focus the initial launch blast. I stumbled across it a couple months back while researching how the "casaba howitzer" works.

 

I'll see if I can dig up a link later when I don't have to run to work.

[Kristopher]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

Not as bad as what everyone seems to think' date=' and there are ways to contain it. Want radiation, wear a tab next time you take a cross country flight. Hells, in a Titan III, the fuel and the oxidizer are more deadly and will do more damage to the country side then the warheads. They just don't have the pretty fireworks and the boom stick factor. We blew up all sorts of stuff for a long time all over the place, and we still get outdone by Mount St. Helens much less a real volcano. Still ain't seeing to many radioactive mutant zombies shambling about.[/quote']

 

The hazard is from fallout. And if you launch from a huge steel pad or from the air' date=' there basically is no fallout[/quote']

 

We're not talking about a few tests, though, right? How many detonations, of what size, would it take to get one of these monsters into orbit?

[RexMundi]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

Depends on how fast you want to go, and if you're carrying people, but the basic figures are all over wikipedia. Launch it off a barge in Antarctica and the effects are effectively, Nothing. Absolutely Zero reason not to be using it now other then ignorance and politics.

 

~Rex

[Kristopher]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

Depends on how fast you want to go' date=' and if you're carrying people, but the basic figures are all over wikipedia. Launch it off a barge in Antarctica and the effects are effectively, Nothing. Absolutely Zero reason not to be using it now other then ignorance and politics.[/quote']

 

The barge doesn't bite it?

 

You don't end up with dead sealife from the detonations?

[megaplayboy]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

Expense for a launch system involving multiple small nukes, materials testing, massive payloads, etc.--that would have to be several times greater than Apollo, I'm thinking.

[RexMundi]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

Barge is a big floating piece of steel, smothered in a layer of oil to kill the ablation. Couple of launches and You might want a new one. Sea Life, maybe if it's ground zero. The Whales might be shouting at you to keep the noise down but we don't speak whale anyway. One of the reason folks in favor of the Orion Drive stuff get so worked up about it is basically, because there's no reason to get worked up about it. It's the Perfect use for a Nuclear Kaboom.

 

Technically, you could launch stuff the size of a freaking city with it, and this was all back in the 50's and 60's. We got things that go Boom now, a LOT cleaner, and a LOT more powerful. There's piles of Off the Shelf fuel sitting all over the place and you don't need very big nukes to make it work. It allows you to get around the single biggest thing, that causes the Expense, of getting into space. Mass of the Payload. Mass means nothing to the Orion Drive. The Bigger the better.

 

Hippies are keeping us ground bound basically.

 

~Rex

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

No damage seems ..optimistic.

Taking the economic angle, all designs use in the range of 800 to 1000 nuclear warheads containing something over 5 kg of plutonium, the difference being that the smaller Orions use less efficient warheads and thus take less shock on their pusher plates, which can be smaller, etc.

The entire annual productiones of plutonium is only 20 tonnes, most of which is not currently extracted, and the world stockpile of usable plutonium is only about 500 tonnes.

Taking the environmental, Arctic and/or Antarctic launch has been recommended because the magnetosphere is minimal at these altitudes. The Wiki article says that most of the fallout would therefore escape the Earth. That's pretty darn optimistic to start with, and of course it does not apply to bombs bursting in the atmosphere. Recall that while the yield of the Orion bombs is low, the amount of fissionable material used is still close to that used in much larger bombs, and therefore the atmospheric contamination is going to be equivalent to the alarming levels reached in atmospheric testing in the early 60s. What happens after Orion reaches orbit, we don't know. The optimists think that all the fallout would just go away.

The optimists also think that Orion will work as a propulsion system. But that's what you get from contracting out your engineering to theoretical physicists. There's no doubt that it will work, but in that sense you can draw a ship that will work on a piece of foolscap freehand. That is not what the final design of the Titanic looked like, and if anyone seriously believes that we can design a working 10,000 ton ship that will fly into orbit on the propulsive effect of 800 unconstrained nuclear air bursts from first principles without extensive (nuclear!) testing....

 

So, in short, we should start working on an Orion project just as soon as a cost-benefits analysis indicates that we actually need one.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

Oh, and on the subject of subcontracting your detailed engineering to handwaving theorists

 

--launching a nuclear-propelled city from a barge? Please to show me this barge.

[Kristopher]

Re: Orion Drive space battleship

 

Hippies are keeping us ground bound basically.

 

Sure, just the hippies, that's all. Damn hippies.

 

 

When we launch the first one, I want it to have an observation deck with a railing, so you can lean out and yell "I'm the king of the world!"