Orion Project - why the haters

Why all the hate on any nuclear radiation

Orion can put 10,000 people base on the moon or Mars in 1 go , or a
100GWat solar power station ( global warming anyone ) . Launch costs
can be down to $10/kg .

The Bombs are not random explosions they are shaped charges that
direct the blast and radiation towards the ship. Statistically the
radiation will kill 1 person ( which is less than the Xrays in a
large hospital over 30 years) .

People forget the opportunity cost if Nasa budgets was funneled into
the health case of the poor 100-1000 lives per year would be saved or
in Africa millions. I bet at least 100 people have died building the
shuttle in work or travel to work related incidents. When you build
an Oil pipeline for $3B its normal that 20 or so people will die.

There seems to be an unrational fear of radiation consider the amount
of dangerous materials with infinite half lives eg lead, Cadmium ,
Dioxin etc we don't go around purging there from the Lithosphere ?

Im not advocating Orion should be the MAIN form but for bulk lifting
it will provide a massive benefit to the space program . eg a Fueling
station with 1M tons of fuel in Orbit Mars expeditions become
trivial .

Consider
Risk to humanity - Put people permanently on a different planet or the
moon or the ability to defeat a large asteroid or meteor.
The cost savings compared to conventional can be spent on medical
programs and save lives.
One launch can remove 10-30 Nuclear or coal power stations.
Global warming , no problem just launch huge shades

The only problem with Orion is its hard to put small quantities eg
less than 4-10,000 tons in Orbit.

wrote:
Why all the hate on any nuclear radiation

Orion can put 10,000 people base on the moon or Mars in 1 go , or a
100GWat solar power station ( global warming anyone ) . Launch costs
can be down to $10/kg .

The Bombs are not random explosions they are shaped charges that
direct the blast and radiation towards the ship. Statistically the
radiation will kill 1 person ( which is less than the Xrays in a
large hospital over 30 years) .

a) It seems likely that a lot of radioactive material, with varying
half-lives, would be desposited into the atmosphere.

b) Never heard of accidents?

Sylvia.

On Nov 8, 12:09*pm, Sylvia Else wrote:
wrote:
Why all the hate on any nuclear radiation

Orion can put 10,000 *people base on the moon or Mars in 1 go , or a
100GWat solar power station ( global warming anyone ) . Launch costs
can be down to $10/kg .

The Bombs are not random explosions they are shaped charges that
direct the blast and radiation towards the ship. Statistically the
radiation will kill 1 person *( which is less than the Xrays in a
large hospital over 30 years) .

a) It seems likely that a lot of radioactive material, with varying
half-lives, would be desposited into the atmosphere.


Yes and statistic analysis has show the impact of this is 1 life ie
less than Xray machines of a hospital.


b) Never heard of accidents?

An accident is no issue as these are individual small bomblets in very
tough shells. After all your going to be exploding the bomlets anyway.


Regards,

Ben

wrote:
On Nov 8, 12:09 pm, Sylvia Else wrote:
wrote:
Why all the hate on any nuclear radiation
Orion can put 10,000 people base on the moon or Mars in 1 go , or a
100GWat solar power station ( global warming anyone ) . Launch costs
can be down to $10/kg .
The Bombs are not random explosions they are shaped charges that
direct the blast and radiation towards the ship. Statistically the
radiation will kill 1 person ( which is less than the Xrays in a
large hospital over 30 years) .
a) It seems likely that a lot of radioactive material, with varying
half-lives, would be desposited into the atmosphere.


Yes and statistic analysis has show the impact of this is 1 life ie
less than Xray machines of a hospital.

Cite.



b) Never heard of accidents?

An accident is no issue as these are individual small bomblets in very
tough shells. After all your going to be exploding the bomlets anyway.


It is in the nature of accidents that they often involve unanticipated
failure modes.

Sylvia.

On Nov 8, 3:15*pm, Sylvia Else wrote:
wrote:
On Nov 8, 12:09 pm, Sylvia Else wrote:
wrote:
Why all the hate on any nuclear radiation
Orion can put 10,000 *people base on the moon or Mars in 1 go , or a
100GWat solar power station ( global warming anyone ) . Launch costs
can be down to $10/kg .
The Bombs are not random explosions they are shaped charges that
direct the blast and radiation towards the ship. Statistically the
radiation will kill 1 person *( which is less than the Xrays in a
large hospital over 30 years) .
a) It seems likely that a lot of radioactive material, with varying
half-lives, would be desposited into the atmosphere.

Yes and statistic analysis has show the impact of this is 1 life ie
less than Xray machines of a hospital.

Cite.



b) Never heard of accidents?

An accident is no issue as these are individual small bomblets in very
tough shells. After all your going to be exploding the bomlets anyway.

It is in the nature of accidents that they often involve unanticipated
failure modes.

Sylvia.

Still wouldn't matter the US have lost some massive nuclear weapons ,
flies them semi armed over cities daily . The savings in such a
program redirected to medical schemes would save millions of lives
compared to doing the same thing via conventional means. There is no
issue the material in a bomblet is irrelevant , only 1 bomblet can
detonate at a time , nuclear weapons are very difficult to detonate
some countries try for 20 years and still cant get it right. Worst
case you are going to get a U235/238 spill which is no big deal, these
are naturally occurring.

The potential for accidents more dangerous than U238/U235 such lead
poisons , cadmium , dioxins , mercury is massive we live with it and
make it as safe as possible. The poison in some chemical rockets like
the SRBs ( or osme RUssian ones) dropped in a water supply would
probably be far more dangerous.

You are not going to be launching such a rocket anywhere near a
populated area anyway.

" wrote in news:a97c5e9c-1b97-4434-906a-
:

Why all the hate on any nuclear radiation

The micronukes required for Orion could be great terrorist weapons.
Can you demonstrate a technology that couldn't be diverted for
weapons applications?

Possible "pumping" of the radiation belts?

The only problem with Orion is its hard to put small quantities eg
less than 4-10,000 tons in Orbit.

No funding for missions that large. When the missions are funded,
the rockets will be built.

--Damon

On Nov 7, 8:03*pm, " wrote:
Why all the hate on any nuclear radiation

Orion can put 10,000 *people base on the moon or Mars in 1 go , or a
100GWat solar power station ( global warming anyone ) . Launch costs
can be down to $10/kg .

The Bombs are not random explosions they are shaped charges that
direct the blast and radiation towards the ship. Statistically the
radiation will kill 1 person *( which is less than the Xrays in a
large hospital over 30 years) .

People forget the opportunity cost if Nasa budgets was funneled into
the health case of the poor 100-1000 lives per year would be saved or
in Africa millions. *I bet at least 100 people have died building the
shuttle in work or travel to work related incidents. *When you build
an Oil pipeline for $3B its normal that 20 or so people will die.

There seems to be an unrational fear of radiation consider the amount
of *dangerous materials with infinite half lives eg lead, Cadmium ,
Dioxin etc we don't go around purging there from the Lithosphere *?

Im not advocating Orion should be the MAIN form but for bulk lifting
it will provide a massive benefit to the space program . eg a Fueling
station with 1M tons of fuel in Orbit Mars expeditions become
trivial .

Consider
Risk to humanity - Put people permanently on a different planet or the
moon or the ability to defeat a large asteroid or meteor.
The cost savings compared to conventional can be spent on medical
programs and save lives.
One launch can remove 10-30 Nuclear or coal power stations.
Global warming , no problem just launch huge shades

The only problem with Orion is its hard to put small quantities eg
less than 4-10,000 tons in Orbit.

This a big piece of hardware. If it works well the
tendency will be to use it often. So the environmental
may add up. It is a numbers thing. To convince me
I really need to see the numbers or at the very
minimum have someone look at the numbers
the had no bias and a deep engineering background
and then they put the blessing on the program.

Personally I don't see the moon as a great goal
as it stands. Perhaps if resources were completely
confirmed and something that result in returns
down here on old earth, it would make sense.

A lunar colony would feel like a prison to me.
I think the colony would be underground tunnel
system with sealed walls. Perhaps it could
extract water but I have my doubts. The lack
of nitrogen and other resources would mean
a lunar colony will always be a dependency.
That is not saying it is impossible that it might
have value on balance.

And as to sun shades, I have doubts. Light
pressure if nothing else would make them impractical
and serve to degrade their orbits.

Mars has more resources. And the larger asteroids
may have enough water ice to be useful.
But again one ends up living in a tunnel system at best.

As some have suggested this would be a one way
trip for most. I mean the miners, mechanics, and technicians.
Indeed, they might not be able to return because of
the prolonged low gravity environment. What pleasures
or rewards could be offered to the under-classes
to go on this one way trip? A bowl of rice?

How is your proposed shielding against
cosmic particle radiation? Passive? Graded?
Active?

Bury my bones on earth...................Trig

On Nov 8, 11:36*am, noauth wrote:
" schreef in bericht news:a97c5e9c-
...





Why all the hate on any nuclear radiation

Orion can put 10,000 *people base on the moon or Mars in 1 go , or a
100GWat solar power station ( global warming anyone ) . Launch costs
can be down to $10/kg .

The Bombs are not random explosions they are shaped charges that
direct the blast and radiation towards the ship. Statistically the
radiation will kill 1 person *( which is less than the Xrays in a
large hospital over 30 years) .

People forget the opportunity cost if Nasa budgets was funneled into
the health case of the poor 100-1000 lives per year would be saved or
in Africa millions. *I bet at least 100 people have died building the
shuttle in work or travel to work related incidents. *When you build
an Oil pipeline for $3B its normal that 20 or so people will die.

There seems to be an unrational fear of radiation consider the amount
of *dangerous materials with infinite half lives eg lead, Cadmium ,
Dioxin etc we don't go around purging there from the Lithosphere *?

Im not advocating Orion should be the MAIN form but for bulk lifting
it will provide a massive benefit to the space program . eg a Fueling
station with 1M tons of fuel in Orbit Mars expeditions become
trivial .

Consider
Risk to humanity - Put people permanently on a different planet or the
moon or the ability to defeat a large asteroid or meteor.
The cost savings compared to conventional can be spent on medical
programs and save lives.
One launch can remove 10-30 Nuclear or coal power stations.
Global warming , no problem just launch huge shades

The only problem with Orion is its hard to put small quantities eg
less than 4-10,000 tons in Orbit.

You've got my blessing, that's for sure. I personally believe the
people in the '50's and '60's showed a lot more sense and engineering
prowess than we have today. Sure, our computers are smaller and with
fancier looking screens, but not much else has changed really. Today,
it takes us two decades or more at enormous cost to recreate what we
did in the '60's from scratch in 8 years with no experience in manned
space flight.

Orion was way ahead of its time and eventually we will overcome this
eco-bull**** and start looking at space flight again from an
engineering perspective and come to the same conclusion that our dads
and granddads came: you NEED nuclear propulsion and power generation
for serious space exploration.

If they had gone ahead with Orion the space probe would have been
halfway to Alpha Centauri by now. Sure the pictures returned wouldn't
be HD quality but we'd be able to see with our own eyes what another
star system looks like. Now, we're just daydreaming about launching
rockets with no pollution or environmental damage and no risk of
killing an innocent sealion or dolphin. We are practically at a
standstill.

We need to commercialize space and start a bold program again doing
away with all this eco-bull****. Yesterday I read an article on
Space.com about some Moon organization not wanting us to 'bomb' the
Moon again. This really got me steaming mad! What have we become? A
bunch of wussies?!!- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

IMO the best thing that could happen to any space program today is to
just keep it alive - there are plenty of NEA's that offer choice
sifting and scanning for their actual metal content, while there are ~
100 NEA Atens w/apehelia 0.983AU within reach that could use an SAR
flyby to scan for resources.

The count range for km. sized Atens, which are closer to being metal-
rich, amount to 56(+11) - (-33), according to a study done of the
orbital database

http://asteroid.lowell.edu [1]

Departure for a mission of this sort occurs from LEO.

I've twiddled with an alternative to the original "pusher plate"
design by incorporating back-to-back golf-ball sized charges that are
ejected at 120/sec from a magnetohydrodynamic storage device.

Each charge gets lased when it reaches the center of a thrust dome, so
the pusher plate design, which was based on a 1/sec bomblet rate
doesn't require the shock absorption system included in the original
Orion design.

The very high thrust that this system offers would allow a very high
delta-V to be applied in a single impulse out of LEO. The resulting
"hyperbolic" escape trajectory, along with a "midcourse correction"
that occurs at a remote point between the earth and target location,
provides the correct plot for reaching the target asteroid.

Arrival and departure from the ~1 km asteroid, using basically
retrojets to correct for the miniscule gravity to land and set up
drilling, scanning, and sifting operations all-in-one, after which a
larger delta V would be required, with the midcourse correction for
the return trip.

The point of closest approach to Earth has to be measured carefully
during midcourse correction so as to adjust for ease of aerobraking
back into LEO - the cargo vessel's c.g. changes appreciably with both
refined and pre-sifted, spectographically signatured regolith, which
can then be further treated while in LEO.

Launch windows for a particular asteroid may be two or three years
apart, so roughly there might be 300 launch opportunities to km-sized
asteroids of all kinds, that are much easier to reach than the Moon.

These can provide an ample supply of mineral resources at a fraction
of the cost of setting up a base elsewhere extraterrestrially, as well
as retrieving those resources on earth.


American

On Sun, 8 Nov 2009 00:10:09 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

On Nov 8, 3:15*pm, Sylvia Else wrote:
wrote:
On Nov 8, 12:09 pm, Sylvia Else wrote:
wrote:
Why all the hate on any nuclear radiation
Orion can put 10,000 *people base on the moon or Mars in 1 go , or a
100GWat solar power station ( global warming anyone ) . Launch costs
can be down to $10/kg .
The Bombs are not random explosions they are shaped charges that
direct the blast and radiation towards the ship. Statistically the
radiation will kill 1 person *( which is less than the Xrays in a
large hospital over 30 years) .
a) It seems likely that a lot of radioactive material, with varying
half-lives, would be desposited into the atmosphere.

Yes and statistic analysis has show the impact of this is 1 life ie
less than Xray machines of a hospital.

Cite.



b) Never heard of accidents?

An accident is no issue as these are individual small bomblets in very
tough shells. After all your going to be exploding the bomlets anyway.

It is in the nature of accidents that they often involve unanticipated
failure modes.

Sylvia.

Still wouldn't matter the US have lost some massive nuclear weapons ,
flies them semi armed over cities daily . The savings in such a
program redirected to medical schemes would save millions of lives
compared to doing the same thing via conventional means. There is no
issue the material in a bomblet is irrelevant , only 1 bomblet can
detonate at a time , nuclear weapons are very difficult to detonate
some countries try for 20 years and still cant get it right. Worst
case you are going to get a U235/238 spill which is no big deal, these
are naturally occurring.

The potential for accidents more dangerous than U238/U235 such lead
poisons , cadmium , dioxins , mercury is massive we live with it and
make it as safe as possible. The poison in some chemical rockets like
the SRBs ( or osme RUssian ones) dropped in a water supply would
probably be far more dangerous.

You are not going to be launching such a rocket anywhere near a
populated area anyway.

Developing a new technology and especially a new launch system of an
outrageous new design requires alot of tests, and alot of full scale
testing.

Since this is completely new technology, how are you going do the te
testing ? How to test the full scale shock absorber assembly (nobody
has ever build something approaching that, how many design and test
cycles ?) How to test the blast shield for a full cycle of bombs ?
It's going to take a lot more bombs (in low atmosphere) than the "lets
build it and launch it" scenario imho.

Aglooka

On Nov 8, 5:03*am, " wrote:
Why all the hate on any nuclear radiation

Orion can put 10,000 *people base on the moon or Mars in 1 go , or a
100GWat solar power station ( global warming anyone ) . Launch costs
can be down to $10/kg .

The Bombs are not random explosions they are shaped charges that
direct the blast and radiation towards the ship. Statistically the
radiation will kill 1 person *( which is less than the Xrays in a
large hospital over 30 years) .

Are you talking about launch from planet surface? If yes then all
these results would mix themselves with air and fly around the globe.

What would be focal point of that pusher plate?
How fast would be bombs launched?
What would be mass of the pusher plate?
What would be mass of radiation shielding to prevent frying of the
useful equipment?
How large would be Ve?
What tonnage would be these bombs?
How large would be useful mass/total mass ratio?


Im not advocating Orion should be the MAIN form but for bulk lifting
it will provide a massive benefit to the space program . eg a Fueling
station with 1M tons of fuel in Orbit Mars expeditions become
trivial .

The only problem with Orion is its hard to put small quantities eg
less than 4-10,000 tons in Orbit.

EMP would fry a lot of electronic on the planet.

I seen article that said something about ISP 6000, which is quite
small considering HIPEP had 84000 Ve, and has been tested in lab.