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Orion - The Atomic Spaceship 1957 - 1965 by George Dyson check out website: www.penguinputnam.com
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 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. President Kennedy didn't
seem to like the idea. 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
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OTHER REVIEWS - November 2003
Told By The Dead by Ramsay Campbell The Sandman: Endless Nights by Neil Gaiman Robota by Doug Chaing and Orson Scott Card Grass For His Pillow by Lian Hearn Darker Than You Think by Jack Williamson The World Jones Made by Philip K. Dick All My Sins Remembered by Joe Haldeman Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion by Larry Nemecek The Year's Best Fantasy And Horror The Binder's Road by Terry McGarry Project Orion - The Atomic Spaceship by George Dyson The Word And The Void by Terry Brooks Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine April/May 2003 Time Out Of Joint by Philip K. Dick Buffy the Vampire Slayer Soundtrack Smallville Soundtrack (The Talon Mix) Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days by Alastair Reynolds Crossroads Of Twilight by Robert Jordan Mediations On Middle-Earth by Karen Haber and John Howe
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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
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.
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