Posted on 12/15/2014 5:01:23 PM PST by cripplecreek
A spaceship powered by nuclear bombs secretly launched in the 1960s. A colony ship on 100-year journey to spread humanity to the stars. These central themes of the SyFy Channel's epic "Ascension" miniseries this week sound like pure science fiction, U.S. scientists actually worked to build such a spaceship in the 1960s.
In "Ascension," a three-part SyFy miniseries that launches tonight (Dec. 15), 600 people live aboard an Orion-class nuclear spacecraft on a mission to Proxima Centauri. The mission launched in 1963, when the Space Race was in full swing and the Cold War made the threat of global nuclear war an uncomfortable possibility. This leads to Project Ascension, led by a Werner von Braun-esque Abraham Enzmann, who dreamed up a spaceship taller than the Empire State Building that is propelled by nuclear bombs.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Got this one set on our DVR. As soon as the Saints start destroying the Bears we will switch over.
I thought I was the only one here who read that kind of drivel! pretty amusing book.
Remember, it’s the SECOND one that really counts!
Just the other day on Twitter Homer Hickam said that the best SciFi is that that comes with real science. (And then he pointed me to his latest book LOL)
He wants to turn NASA into a subversive agency that leads the revolution against earth.
Most of the ones we’ve found to date are inhospitable to say the least but they’ve located a few possibles and they’re just starting. Some of the telescope and other sensing experiments, launches should learn even more.
Yeah, that is probably the sweet spot with a story like this. If they are 50 years from the destination still, a continuing series would lose steam pretty quickly.
I will have to catch it later. I haven’t seen SyFy in a couple of years at least.
Sounds like Mad men meets the right stuff meets star trek...
I'm watching it and will be recording the series.
It's just a take off mini-series from the original film called Elysium starring Matt Damon and Jodi Foster.....it sucked.
If you like SciFi I heartily endorse “Macroscope” by Piers Anthony. I am nearing completion now...it is everything I remembered from my first reading back in the late ‘60’s, early ‘70’s.
As a sci-fi nerd, I am going to watch it. I am counting the days when star trek comes back on TV... I would love to see a conservative libertarian crew...
They’re going to blow up Space!!
Sounds like there is to class tension as part of the plot but that’s not really unexpected in a situation like this. Battlestar Galactica dealt with a lot of the same issues for the same reasons.
Society needs an upper class, its peons, and everyone in between.
I love science fiction but after seeing some previews I doubt I will watch it
Me too. What a great pic and check out the supporting cast.
I just watched the trailer, lots of people taking off their clothes and having sex. I don’t watch porn, so I won’t watch.
My first impression- Wool in Space.
Even in a “world” without currency, there is ALWAYS a trade currency, isn’t there.
The only successful plan is an Orion-like ship.
It also fully discusses the social ramifications when the entire population learns the Earth is toast and only about 10,000 of them will get a ticket off the planet.
OMG, what memories you have brought back. This book was my first real Sci-Fi Novel, read it back in my young teenage years. It left a big impression on me. Much better than his later stuff.
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