RE: Richard and other thinkers

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Richard Jernigan

Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA

RE: Richard and other thinkers (in reply to Richard Jernigan)

Larisa and I stopped off in Los Angeles when I was showing her San Francisco, Santa Barbara, etc. on the way to Spain in May, 2007. We stopped by to see the Space-X people we knew from their work at Kwajalein.

They not only know how to build rockets. They can also throw one hell of a toga party.

RNJ

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 12 2014 0:46:29

Ricardo

Posts: 14806
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Richard and other thinkers (in reply to Richard Jernigan)

quote:

I'm not saying the Orion concept will never work--whatever the Orion concept may be. The concept itself was still evolving rapidly when the project was cancelled. But I think you would have a hard time convincing even the protagonists of the Orion project that it was "current technology". There was a lot of work left to be done, and if experience is any indication, the end result would have been a good deal different from the starting ideas.

When confronted with the problem of nuclear waste, we laymen tend to have the light bulb go off with the brilliant idea of "lets put it all in some big Rockets and launch the junk straight into the sun!!!". Of course the idea is not seriously considered as the danger of something going wrong between launch and exiting earths atmosphere safely, that could result in global catastrophe, is WAY too high percentage wise. Yet, I don't think anyone will say it is beyond our TECHNOLOGICAL capability to attempt, if we were so bold as to play the odds. To me, Orion is a simple idea on paper that appears well within our technological abilities since decades. Of course we face the same exact dangers of constructing the thing in space as previously example ... and further dangers during operation...and further with the actual mission itself. Dangers are obvious. But I feel that the vast majority of people wrongly assume that basic space travel such as that (going pretty fast I mean such that humans could reach a near star in their lifetime aboard the craft) is TECHNOLOGICALLY completely impossible. I feel Orion to be a great example of what has potential despite the dangers and surely modifications and adaptations to the original blue prints. I guess it remains science fiction until we achieve it, but at least it doesn't violate physics we know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 12 2014 15:36:31

Richard Jernigan

Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA

RE: Richard and other thinkers (in reply to Ricardo)

quote:

I guess it {Orion}remains science fiction until we achieve it, but at least it doesn't violate physics we know.

I was thinking some of the main work to be done was in the area of materials. The stuff I developed to defeat Soviet defenses had to survive the effects of a Soviet nuclear attack on the incoming missiles. But this was from a high-yield weapon miles away. The major damage mechanism was a really nasty dose of gamma rays.

Not only could this wreck the special silicon-on-sapphire electronics used in intercontinental missiles, it could vaporize exposed surfaces and damage structures from the resulting shock.

We did a lot of material modeling using codes developed at Los Alamos, and a lot of underground testing in Nevada. The underground test setup had the bomb in a chamber, the test samples in tunnels radiating away from the bomb. Between the bomb and the samples were blast doors that shut after the radiation burst started down the tunnels, but before much of the material debris got out of the chamber. The blast doors themselves were fairly fancy engineering, with thick steel skins and internal construction out of layers of ceramic and stuff. Once the samples were retrieved, the whole thing was abandoned. You can still see the craters where the ground caved in above each of the bomb chambers.

The people who retrieved the samples out of the tunnels didn't go near the blast doors--too radioactive, so we don't know much about the effects of a nearby nuclear explosion on the stuff the doors were made out of. But most of the time they survived a single explosion well enough to keep the samples from getting wiped out by the blast.

Of course there were those rare times when the blast doors failed to work right. The tunnels were a big mess when this happened. You could see the underground TV cameras get wiped out. We just left the whole thing alone when that happened, and started getting ready for the next test.

As far as I know, we are still pretty much ignorant about the effects of a series of nearby nuclear explosions on materials we hope would survive. Since computers are a lot more capable now than when I was working on this stuff, we ought to be able to do more simulation. But simulations are no good without test data to verify them. We had to revise our models more than once when tests revealed effects we hadn't thought of.

When I was thinking of the work to be done to get Orion working, I was thinking of a lot of materials and assembly testing, with fairly low yield nuclear devices going off in close proximity to some pretty expensive toys.

Still not saying it couldn't be done. Just a lot of work left to be done to make it "current technology." And maybe a few revolting developments along the way.

RNJ

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 12 2014 16:16:56