http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/O/OrionProj.html
Posted on 09/23/2005 2:45:56 PM PDT by tricky_k_1972
Great!
Narby, man I agree, I know what the smart play is, I just don't think you can convince the general populace that were right.
The new project NASA is talking about is 109 Billion dollars over 5 to 18 years and you already hear squawking over that, and that’s less than .5% of today's national budget. Heck if we wanted to do what NASA is proposing we could spend the money and have it all operational within 2 to 3 years and the public wouldn't even notice the expense.
All this, All this crap about the expense of what NASA is currently planning is just that, crap.
My only idea on how to correct the public perception is to have a huge advertising campaign and a income tax check-off for direct spending on NASA like we do with state projects on beef/pork promotion or if you don't like NASA then do the same thing except it goes directly toward private investment.
I like it....now all that we need is someone with the guts to make it happen.
He does discuss that I think, if you read the entire proposal. I just can't bring myself to post ten pages or more on FreeRepublic.
One additional booster method that's been a staple of science fiction stories, has been the use of ground-based lasers to propel a spacecraft outside the atmosphere
The stupid eF'en thing about the whole deal is with this type of rocket you could move most industry off planet and turn the entire planet into a gigantic park, the environ weenies should be pushing this to the hilt.
That is the hard part.
I can't tell for sure if you're agreeing with me on the runway-to-orbit that I'm pushing, or the Nuclear rocket you're talking about. But if it's runway-to-orbit, the way to promote it is to let Rutan and his buddies keep on flying higher and faster and getting headlines. At some point a commercial and/or government critical mass of opinion will develop and we'll do it.
Having SpaceShipOne in the Air and Space Museum down the street from the Congress will help too.
The nuke rocket is a cool engineering idea, but I just can't ever see the nimbys (or the not-over-my-heads) allowing it to happen. We can't even get permission to cut down diseased or half burnt up trees without lawsuits for years, so I can't ever see such a rocket being built for generations. At least until the population gets an entirely different attitude about nuclear.
Very Cool. I wish one would get built!
Yes, your right the initial development is really, really expensive, but unlike most SSTO's this is truly reusable and it can save money simply by being used for nuclear waste disposal.
After all, how much are they spending to create that National Nuclear Waste Disposal site?
Check this out!
I was talking about the runway-to-orbit air-breathing engine design.
The problem I see is Rutan isn't proposing an air-breathing engine design, nor has he ever proposed one. The Roton rocket was sort of the same idea, but even he couldn't get it to work.
I'm not saying that an air-breathing engine to LEO can't work, I know it can, but I think it will take 10 to 30 years of steady, intense, direct engineering to get us there, and nobody that I have seen is even starting in that direction.
I still think that my idea of a tax check-off for direct funding of either NASA or private industry "Prizes" for development is the best way to go.
Yep, but the only way to develop a sustained power source capable of providing this powerful of a laser is, you guessed it, Nuclear power.
Ping!
Oops, found it. it is in the article above, only it's a really small one line:
Let's design the vehicle for a total DeltaV of 15 km per second. This is very high for a LEO booster, but the reason for it is to allow enough reaction mass to perform a powered descent. In other words, this is a true spaceship, that flies up and then can fly back down again.
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/O/OrionProj.html
oh yes... The project was cancelled. Considered risky.
I was just thumbing through my old Starflight Handbook, the concept was actually tested with the Put-Put....I love those days. That being said, Anthony Tate's numbers for specific impulse are definitely on the conservative side for a gaseous core fission engine....I would pull a tooth to see this built.
That's why we can't launch from the US, but any place that is reasonably close to the equator will do. Is Mexico hungry enough?
But they will anyway, being enviros - there just isn't a whole lot they can do about it.. They tried to stop Galileo and Cassini, didn't they, which also operated only outside the Earth's atmosphere.
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