Project Orion to Bring U.S. Back to the Moon

ganjadude writes "Thirty-seven years ago yesterday, Project Apollo put the first humans on the surface of the Moon. The next time the U.S. launches its astronauts to Earth's natural satellite, they will do so as part of Project Orion." From the article: "Under Project Orion, NASA would launch crews of four astronauts aboard Orion capsules, first to Earth orbit and the International Space Station and then later to the Moon. Two teams, one led by Lockheed Martin and the other a joint effort by Northrop Grumman and The Boeing Co., are currently competing to build the CEV. NASA is expected to select the winner in September."

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Project Orion?

[TheFlyingGoat]

Project Orion [wikipedia.org] has been used in a lot of sci-fi stories. The basic premise is that nuclear warheads are dropped below the ship, where the detonate and the blast lifts the ship. Relatively cheap way to lift immense masses.

It'd be the easiest way to establish a permanent moon base or make a trip to Mars, but of course people don't like the idea of thousands of nuclear warheads going off in their backyard. :)

Obviously only the name is the same with this latest version.

The last lunar landing was Apollo 17...

[Ellis D. Tripp]

Apollo 18 was killed by budget cuts shortly after 19 and 20 were. :(

Re:Thanks for getting my hopes up, NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. Naming in Orion is travsity. The real Orion would open up the entire solar system. This return to Apollo style capsules is an embarassment, a belated acknowledgement that we went down the wrong path and now must back up and start again. Nothing at all like the great leap forward that a nuclear pulse rocket would be.

Not really. In order to use a nuclear pulse rocket (or any realistically sized method of nuclear propulsion) you need a heavy lift rocket. Currently there is no heavy lift rocket that could realistically put a nuclear pulse rocket into LEO (and a nuclear pulse rocket would have to be in a very high earth orbit or in interplanetary space before any politician would allow it to be activated). Rebuilding our heavy lift capability with the CaLV or Ares V is essential.

Second, we need a cheap way to put humans into space. The CLV or Ares I will do that.

The only part that you should consider a waste would be building the lander (and perhaps the CLV if you are one of those machine-only supporters). The Ares architecture will be extremely useful for future technologies. Even large rockets like the Delta IV or the Arianne V are kids toys compared to real heavy lift rockets like the Saturn V and the Ares V. Having a 100 ton class rocket makes a lot of projects possible, not just Project Orion.

Re:Project Orion?

[ucblockhead]

Project Orion didn't use nukes to "lift" the ship. It was an interstellar craft that would have used nukes for propulsion once well away from Earth.

Using nukes to "lift" anything would be utterly insane.

Re:inherent scientific value?

[Schemat1c]

I question that we would necessarily have developed velcro...

Once again, Velcro was not developed by NASA.

From Wikipedia: [wikipedia.org]

"The hook and loop fastener was invented in 1948 by Georges de Mestral, a Swiss engineer. The idea came to him after he took a close look at the Burdock seeds which kept sticking to his clothes and his dog's fur on their daily walk in the Alps. De Mestral named his invention "VELCRO" after the French words velours, meaning 'velvet', and crochet, meaning 'hook'. Today Beige-a is the leading exporter of velcro in the world."

Re:inherent scientific value?

[Seraphim1982]

I question that we would necessarily have developed velcro, microcomputers, Tang, new alloys, biomedical advances, etc., by sending robotic ships to explore space.

Tang and Velcro were devolped independently of the US space program. Velcro was invented in Europe in 1948. Tang was devolped as a breakfast drink in the 50's about 10 years before its association with the space program.

What's more, it's the manned space flights that hold the public's interest and keep the funding up.

Then why were the later Apollo missions abandoned due to lack of public interest?
Holding the public's interest is impossible, the public is far to fickle.

Re:Why not build more Saturn Vs?

[cadeon]

The Saturn V is insanely inefficient by today's standards. But they are thinking like you're thinking- they are using the same concepts as the Saturn V, but applying space shuttle technology (specifically the main engines, which are arguably the best rocket engines ever designed). SSMEs are wonderful units. Lots of money were spent on them, lots of testing was done, they've been continuously improved and have never experienced a failure. They're the way to go.

Re:Project Orion?

[MichaelSmith]

Using nukes to "lift" anything would be utterly insane.

I wonder if you have read Footfall [wikipedia.org] by Larry Niven?

The Orion launch is a classic IMHO: God was knocking, and he wanted in bad

Re:inherent scientific value?

[DestroyAllZombies]

Funny, when I first read the header I thought we were going to use a large spacecraft with nuclear warheads detonated behind it to reach the moon. That's what Project Orion used to be. But that's not the point. NASA has already used ion propulsion on a mission (Deep Space One) and I believe it's fairly common for station-keeping in earth orbit. But it's spectacularly ill-suited for launches. You fire a long time to get the velocity change you want, it's not like a swift kick in the pants.

And I'm pretty sure that the cost of lunar missions is not determined by the price of the fuel you use to get into orbit.

Re:inherent scientific value?

[vain023]

ion-propulsion is not in the vaporware stage, it's in deployment!

NASA's deep space 1 launched 1998 http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/quick_facts.html [nasa.gov]

ESA's SMART-1 launched 2003 http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/SMART-1/SEMSDE1A6BD_0. html [esa.int]

boeing sells ion thrusters for satelites http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/bss/fact sheets/xips/xips.html [boeing.com]

additionally, these technologies will never be used to replace chemical rockets. chemical rockets throw a lot of mass out the back at a relativly slow speed, but all at once. giving you enough velocity to get off the planet.

ion thrusters throw a very little bit of mass out the back at very high speeds, but run continuously for months/years. after that length of time at a constant acceleration you end up with a very high velocity.

unless you have discovered some new physics and an antigravity engine, throwing things out of the back of the spaceship, or hauling it up an elevator are the only conceiveable methods of getting something off the planet.

It was Nukes from the ground up

[billstewart]

The original Orion proposals were nukes from the ground up, and hope there wasn't too much fallout; the revisionist idea of using conventional rocketry to get the building materials into LEO and then firing the nukes where fallout wouldn't matter would be horrendously impractical. Maybe you could build an interplanetary Orion on a Moon base if you had one of those, though of course hauling thousands of nukes to the moon has its own risks of catastrophic failure.

And of course that doesn't even *begin* to count the *serious* risks, like what happens if you develop nice convenient little Mr. Fusion Hand Grenades and an assembly line to produce them by the tens of thousands, or the risks that doing enough nuclear explosives research to get the right size Project Orion fuel charge means the Weapons Of Mass Destruction people get to reuse any test design work for whatever other applications they can think of.

Nonetheless, it was *way* *fscking8 *cool*.

Politically Incorrect

[klausner]

Project Orion [wikipedia.org] was a proposal from the 1950's headed by Freeman Dyson to drive a spacecraft by throwing nuclear baombs out the back end. I guess you could call that pulse propulsion. Even suggesting something like that today would have every anti-nuclear type going ballistic (pun intended.) Chemical rockets are clearly a dead end, but the eco-freaks will never allow nuclear, laser launch, beanstalks, electro-magnetic catapults, or any other alternative system. :(

Re:inherent scientific value?

[Anonymous Coward]

your - A person's; one's. you're - you are

Re:Why not build more Saturn Vs?

[adavidw]

... but applying space shuttle technology (specifically the main engines...

The SSMEs have been cut. The current plan has the Ares V using RS-68 engines from the Delta IV for the 1st stage. The upper stages of both Ares I and V will use J2-X. Yep, as in those J2s. From the Saturn program.

Re:Thanks for getting my hopes up, NASA

[AaronLawrence]

If you read the Wikipedia article, you'll see that a launch would be about the same as one 10MT weapon. They did plenty of tests in Nevada last century.

If you could get past the public hysteria over nukes, it would be quite feasible. A sufficiently big reason like a certain asteroid hit or China with weapons in space would probably do it.

Still, as a regular launch method that seems a bit much...

BBC segment

[smoker2]

Interestingly, BBC New 24 had a half hour fluff piece about the shuttle and future plans for space travel on this morning.

Have a gander. [headru.sh] [xvid 250MB]

(tip. If you're using Firefox on linux, drag the link to a xine window and stream it. If you're using windows, then you might have to copy the link and paste it into your player- vlc is good)

Re:inherent scientific value?

[0111 1110]

First, we don't have to import engineers. They are falling all over themselves to get here. We are merely allowing them to do so. You know, the brain drain and all that. For some reason the smartest folks from all those countries are incredibly desperate to come here. You might want to ask them why. Second, do a little reading about Indian teachers. You might learn something. Many of them don't even bother to show up for class. They are paid almost nothing. Yeah. That's a real dedication to teaching and education. It's considered a serious problem in India. At least our teachers show up.

It is true that the US does have a very anti-intellectual (mainstream) culture, but then so do many countries. I don't know how that problem could be fixed. American women are not attracted to intelligence. They are attracted to physically large and strong guys. Maybe this is at the root of the problem. Or maybe not.

In terms of technology at least I don't see this 'failure' you are referring to. When was the last time you heard about some new tech coming from any of those countries. In China you'd have to go back thousands of years I think. In Russia, if you discount their space program, you'd probably have to go back even farther. And India? Has anything ever been invented there? Not that I don't like a good curry. And I love Basmati rice.

Re:inherent scientific value?

[ultranova]

And India? Has anything ever been invented there?

According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], the number zero, negative numbers and binary and decimal number systems are Indian inventions. You might have heard of them sometimes ;).

According to this page [edhelper.com], sugar (extracting it from sugarcane, to be exact) and cotton were also invented (found ?) in India.

Not that I don't like a good curry. And I love Basmati rice.

Indeed.