Project Orion - The Atomic Spaceship 1957 - 1965 by George Dyson
01/11/2003 . Source: Rod MacDonald 

pub: Penguin Press Science. 368 page paperback. Price: £ 7.99 (UK). ISBN: 0140277323.

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Saturn by 1970! Picture this, if you will. A huge spaceship with a mass approaching four thousand tons, three years out from Earth but within reach of the ringed planet Saturn.

The crew of 150 manoeuvre their ship to land on the small satellite Enceladus. The planet seems to fill the sky, an image the like of which none of us will ever see but they did, all these years ago. It may even be the case that George Dyson was on board.

He may have died there.

Science Fiction is all about alternative realities. Here's one which was and still is, much closer to reality than we think. Back in the fifties when efforts were being made to launch puny little artificial satellites using chemical rockets, plans were afoot to use atomic power to get us into space.

This isn't the conventional idea of using a nuclear reactor to heat gases and provide thrust. No, it was a somewhat crude concept of using the explosive power of atomic bombs to push a spaceship upwards and upwards with huge thrust and power into space.

The idea was formulated about the time the first fission and fusion bombs were being exploded. George Dyson was a boy at this time but his father, Freeman, eventually worked on the project organised with US Government funds through General Atomic.

The project lasted until 1965 when it was shelved because of impracticalities in the design, not the least being the problem of nuclear fallout but it was a serious attempt and one which may have worked. Much of the data remains classified. Nonetheless, Dyson gives us a lucid and intriguing account of events.

Looking back, it's amazing how amateurish some of the nuclear work now seems. Guys fresh out of university were getting top jobs in the nuclear programme. Everything was new, untried and untested. For example, the first fusion explosion, a massive event of approximately 10 megatons, was simply a fission bomb set in a supercooled tank of deuterium. They hadn't much idea of the possible outcome - maybe we've been lucky to get off so lightly!

People were brought together for Project Orion. The idea was to drop fission bombs out of the bottom of the ship. The explosion, combined with thrust material in the bomb, would expand and press against a plate in the base of the ship. The motion, smoothed out using shock absorbers, was continually added to as more bombs were exploded - a sort of nuclear pulse spaceship.

Arthur Clarke made the comment that this was nothing unusual. After all, his car was propelled by a series of explosions taking place in the engine. The thing about Orion was that nuclear bombs under one kiloton weren't really viable. So, using this very considerable energy, the ship had to be big to absorb the explosion and provide enough protection for the crew.

The basic design of 4000 tons had a crew compartment of 1000 tons mass. Think of the luxury this would permit compared to the tiny Apollo capsule. In reality, this would be a proper spaceship! With room for 150 people in relative luxury, the entire solar system would come within reach.
Because the military became involved (Orion was at a difficult time hovering between NASA and USAF, with leanings towards the latter) there was talk of using the ship to store missiles in orbit, ready to rain down on possible enemies.

President Kennedy didn't seem to like the idea.
Orion never got off the ground although a couple of test vehicles using conventional explosives were relatively successful. People were probably scared.

After all, a ship using thousands of atomic bombs to blast itself off earth was a bit too much for some sensibilities. Imagine the consternation it would cause today. Calculations of fallout concluded that a launch would maybe cause a dozen or so deaths somewhere on Earth. Repeating this would exponentially increase the number of deaths. It had to be cancelled.

The concept is still viable. Using nuclear fusion, Project: Daedalus formulated by the British Interplanetary Society some twenty years ago used clean thermonuclear pulses to move a spaceship towards the stars. I don't think the idea is quite dead. Somewhere in the Pentagon, people will be thinking about its magnetic possibilities.

Meanwhile, we have the book to enjoy. Though it gets a little stuffy at times, most of the text gives us an amazing insight into what went on at the beginning of the space age. For this alone, it's worth reading. Here is an alternative reality which was a considerable possibility. Maybe it did take place elsewhere.

That's why George Dyson is afraid to look at Saturn through a telescope. The large image imparts an illogical fear which makes him think that, in another reality, he went to Saturn and died in an accident of sorts.

Who knows? Maybe there is another reality where huge nuclear spaceships cruise the Solar system? The planet Mars may already have hundreds if not thousands of inhabitants. The fallout may have killed a few thousand on earth - this is the downside - but some in this reality say the cost is no worse than the automobile or the coal fire.

Rod MacDonald