Ascension & Project Orion

A short video about Orion, the secret project to build a nuclear powered spaceship in the 1960s.
I recently watched the TV miniseries "Ascension" on SyFy and it reminded me about this amazing little chapter in space engineering.

[@darrenhawkes598]

Fantastic, thanks for this, it's always difficult to find more information regarding Orion / Daedelus craft. Subscribed.

[@matthewcaughey8898]

The science behind Orion was actually proven. In theory it would work but it was never tested beyond a few models. The Orion was one of several nuclear powered space experiments from that era. As it was obvious that after the moon the next step was mars, they started to experiment with concepts that would allow them to build a moon base and get to mars within a reasonable timeframe. First was NERVA an actual NASA project it was basically a nuclear rocket it was intended to allow bigger and larger payloads to be carried to the moon and beyond. NERVA got as far as several static test engines which did prove the concept but for some reason NASA killed the funding. Orion was something that on paper seemed utterly hairbrained but had a realistic function. The idea was Orion could get to mars in a week anytime it was needed to cause of its propulsion. The designers envisioned NERVA as a solar system travel system, Orion was the interstellar part of this project. Orion was never taken seriously as a concept for some reason. The other interstellar projects came from the us naval lab with project long shot. It’s intended use was a long range deep space probe with the ability to orbit a planet of our or its choice. Over 100 years it would slowly drop parts away to reduce its overall mass. The other one developed in 1979 by the interplanetary society of England was project Daedalus. It was supposed to be a massive space probe assembled in space, the idea was to get to Barnard’s Star and report back within a human lifetime. Trouble is it would be going so damn fast that it would have to deploy its subprobes up to a decade before it reached its destination. There would be just hours for observation and transmission of that data back to earth using the engine bell as a com dish

[@Shipwright1918]

My eyebrows definitely went up when the Ascension was listed as an Orion class ship, it's a neat reference to a little known project that was a real idea at the time the ship was supposed to have been built and launched. Personally I found the ship and the project itself more interesting than the actual drama of the show, it gave a very Fallout-like vibe, and it has a degree of plausibility to it. Use black budget money to fund the project and build the ship, arrange a few disappearances, accidents, etc. here and there to get a crew put together without anyone asking questions, and hey presto, you've got a spaceship in a bottle and a human version of the NIMH "Rat Utopia" experiment to run for 50 years in secret. As for a real life Orion-type ship, you'd probably have to build it in space in a high orbit to get around the radiation issue, but it would be doable if you had the money to throw at it.

[@Howyaduing]

Shipwright1918 not only as you pointed out have it built in orbit and in the fashion of an O’Neill cylinder, but have the humans be assisted by Roswell type aliens in its construction there’s your sci-fi element for the show!

[@Shipwright1918]

@@Howyaduing Well, I was technically speaking about going about building an Orion-type ship for real, not the plot of the show. It's been doable for quite a while now, it's just going to take a lot of money and the will to do it. Ascension was already leaning into some sci-fi elements by the end of its one season cliffhanger run, but I always felt that it was a mystery/thriller/relationship drama first and foremost. The secret 1960's spaceship stuff was essentially just a backdrop and plot device for the story to take place. In the end, I felt they were starting to reach a bit towards more fantastic elements in order to possibly attract support for another season, which ultimately didn't happen.

[@Howyaduing]

Shipwright1918 to me though the whole show felt rushed and nobody really did the research for the practical science of the show.

[@JFrazer4303]

The space-only version used 1 per 20 seconds pacing. One reason they relaxed when they decided to trash ground-launch was this relaxed pulse-rate. No, the Orion stage wasn't meant for landing. It carried a aeroentry craft. Ground launch is too often used as a straw-man against it. They designed it in 100 ton segments to be lifted on a Saturn-V booster and fueled and assembled in orbit. Musk is talking about cost to LEO of $100/kg. Back then, numbers agreed from General Atomics, NASA, the USAF, the DoE, and the White House OMB, that the cost of the boosters and of the mission hardware each, would be more than the cost of either the engine propulsion module or the hundreds of bombs in it (the way they were churning out triggers back then). EMP is produced in very large blasts in the upper atmosphere. This isn't. .03kt bomb at 250 miles isn't going to put out EMP like a 20 megaton bomb.

[@RodrigoHernandez.562]

This series needs to continue in book format. At this point in time a TV series is not going to happen.

[@Thumblegudget]

Or maybe steal the original premise and then write a different book entirely. Damn I wish I had more spare time!

[@jasonjason6584]

@@Thumblegudget I was actually thinking the same thing: but set in a bunker that people entered in the 50s or 60s that the gov made for them to protect them for the cold war. But the war never happened but he people in the bunker don't know. The gov keeps them down there to study them to see what happens to enclosed societies to see if how space travel would work like (fallout)

[@christosgiannopoulos828]

Image what a sight it would be to see an Orion class spaceship taking off. A tower shaped like a submarine is standing in the middle of a field. Then, blinding lights begin to flash and thunderous sounds echo in a pattern similar to a fast heartbeat, as one after another, countless of thermonuclear freaking bombs go off. The tower lifts itself off the ground at an ever increasing speed. It rises up towards the sky, appearing smaller and smaller until it's so far away that only the pulsating light of its bombs is visible. Eventually, it disappears when even that light gets blurred by the atmosphere as the spaceship leaves the planet behind and heads for the stars.

[@BOBXFILES2374a]

Absolutely fascinating! I had heard of the "nuclear bomb-propulsion" concept, but I didn't know it had gone that far. Yeah, all that fallout (2X/SECOND??) and EMP might cause some problems. Still, building it in orbit might work out...in about 75 years. Thanks for showing this!

[@xanatos3633]

The big boy the Super Orion was to be 1,000 ft wide x 1,100 ft tall and mass 10,000,000 tons two million dedicated to payload !!!!!🎆🚀🎆🚀🎆🚀🎆🚀🎆🚀

[@bbbf09]

The science was 'almost ' plausible...However, a big flaw was the occupants were under constant 1g acceleration and any tech/scientists on board would easily be able to work out that after 50 years of this they would be almost at light speed (99.999%) and have experienced extreme relativistic time dilation for many years ship time by then by then. Likely thousand in reference frame. Anyone with basic relativity would have worked out that with such effects their position would be way beyond local stars by now and half way across the galaxy (in non relativisti time tens of thousands of years would have passed by then). Havent run the numbers yet but if I recall at 1G accleration you can get out among the galaxies within a human lifetime.

[@thomasciarlariello3228]

Uranium gas core fission fragment rockets based on criticality test is a better version than pusher plate where one would heat a hafnium fuel tank of uranium hexachloride to vaporize fuel to flow into nested layers of concentric zirconium rocket nozzles ideal for Osada's Jetavator Patent since thermonuclear heat could be used to cause injected lithium deuteride to undergo fusion.

[@thomasciarlariello3228]

if you are talking SyFy there are plenty of professional peer reviewed articles on how neutron flux on aperiodic quasicrystals induce oscillations beyond our three dimensional universe for hyperdrives for 2 way instantaneous jumps between galaxies.

[@thomasciarlariello3228]

"Neutron & Synchrotron Radiation For Condensed Matter Studies" Volume II "Science" June 4, 2008 "Crystal Engineering" December 2003

[@angztekindustries]

Thanks for this! 🤓 I heard of the alleged legend of #ProjectSerpo but not #ProjectOrion "She's punctuated Evolution made real!" I liked the story and had to remind myself they never had the Sexual Revolution.

[@davidsandy5917]

Life on a generational star ship is no different than 50 or so years ago when someone lived, grew up, and died within a few miles of where he was born. The real issue with generational star ships is what will the next generation think about the mission of the previous? Will they want to go on? Can they change things if they want to? Could a new politic develop? All good subjects to consider.

[@AckzaTV]

How the HELL could this thing make a "propulsive landing" on earth? How would it not just fall back to earth? Yi really wanna see cgi of this thing landing maybe in kerbel

[@Thumblegudget]

I did say “stand well back”

[@Howyaduing]

Most likely it was constructed in earths orbit then the crew We’re shuttle to the ship from traditional rockets then finally the ship broke orbit from earth and lunch on its maiden voyage that would make sense

[@ficklefingeroffate]

The series was cancelled thus the unresolved story arc.

[@Thumblegudget]

I’m not convinced. They threw in some curveballs at the end that didn’t have any foreshadowing. Or maybe I just wasn’t observant enough.

[@Shipwright1918]

@@Thumblegudget I think they were throwing in stuff to try and spice up the plot and drum up support for another season to be produced. Personally would've like to have seen where they ran with it, but ultimately I think there's only so far they could've went without either the project getting its cover blown or the little super powered girl somehow teleporting the whole thing to an actual new planet somewhere, or if you're a pessimist, the company deciding whether to kill them all to keep the secret or release them, possibly because there's been a leak and the government is breathing down their necks. If this was going to be rebooted, I'd either have the ship be real or show the experiment further on when the voyage is supposed to be ending.

[@woufff_]

Very interesting Video. I have started to watch the show, but I was not convinced, thus I stopped after watching not even the first episode in full...

[@RodrigoHernandez.562]

Your missing out.

[@christosgiannopoulos828]

A better title for the series would be Suspension (of disbelief)

[@meridian1003]

It gets so so much better

[@thomasciarlariello3228]

Political Drama is literary snob appeal such as how Aldous Huxley had "rocket plane engineers".

[@workathome5431]

ummm hellooo we didn't go to the moon

[@bbbf09]

mmmmm. . . . . yep definitely did. You only think otherwise if you're an idiot - or have a mind that works extra extra hard to convince you to see conspiracy and paranoia where there is none. My commiserations.

[@workathome5431]

@@bbbf09 Oh no you called me an idiot. I don't know if I will make it through the day. YOU do not have the EYES TO SEE or the EARS TO HEAR. The TRUTH is in PLAIN SIGHT. Keep yourself Indoctrinated and have a happy life and don't forget to get vaccinated also because COVID 19 is REAL too

[@bbbf09]

@@workathome5431 I know I know ....and we are ruled by lizard people and and the earth is flat as well. Stay strong - I hope you can make ii through the day.

[@workathome5431]

@@bbbf09 Lizard People? Flat Earth?

[@bbbf09]

@@workathome5431 Questions marks! You've not heard? Oh my - for the conspiracy minded narcissist like yourself , you are in for a treat my friend. Turns out that; (1) Whilst all the other planets in the solar system clearly are globes and rotate (as seen in telscope) your friends have determined that the Earth is flat - the ancient Greeks who first worked out the Earth was a globe and measured its diameter - and everyone ever since for 2000 years have been spinning a big lie and all the space stuff is just NASA propaganda (probably funded by the lizard people - see below) (2) The Earth is run by some form of lizard Aliens who pose as world's elites and run everything. Or something like that. They somehow (for some reason) don't control the internet which is why you and your clever smart conspiracy theorist are allowed to discuss your conspiracies about them. Lots of mad stuff for you to chew on there. You are gonna freakin love it!

[@thatnikkakris2339]

I thought it was terrible