Project Orion Nuclear Pulse Rocket

[@JackBWatkins]

I was involved in research similar to these scientists back in the early 1960’s also. We set up our launch pad behind my parents suburban home in the back ally. Our scale was smaller, we used an empty 2 pound coffee can (weight of the coffee, not the can) and black cat firecrackers. We could not achieve a series of pulse explosions so we relied on a single blast to propel our craft (empty coffee can) to hights of 20 to 30 feet. Any higher and our craft would miss the landing zone and go into the neighbors backyard and required a fence climbing expedition. Our blast was reflected off of the bottom of the vessel which was inverted for launch. As we approached higher test flights and faster speeds we noticed the vessels started to deform after just a few explosions and then burst at the seams. We had adequate funding to continue our research through 1960’s and beyond as coffee cans and black cat firecrackers were available at little or no cost. However, as my small suburban community grew they passed a ban on pulse explosion rocketry via out lawing fire works. No fingers were lost in our experiments and no atomic radiation was released. A few dogs did bark.

[@zazugee]

i remember we used water plastic bottles and those string firecrackers

[@JackBWatkins]

@@zazugee SCIENCE🧨

[@cme98]

Yours the best comment

[@theianmce]

I did the same thing with one of those cigarette butt stations and some M80s, the top of it went 40 feet in the air!

[@JackBWatkins]

@@theianmce I requested some M-80’s from the Quartermaster, but he said I would blow my fingers off and that Mom would kill both of us if that happened. But I used multiple black cats as my launch protocols. However it is good to know your results so I can add it to my data.

[@defaultuserid1559]

"Footfall" by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven contains a great description of building and flying an Orion ship.

[@wilemelliott]

Orion Battleship at that. They even took the gun turrets off the New Jersey, and lofted all 4 [at the time] Shuttle orbiters AND their external tanks, and multiple "gun ships" which were basically a capsule strapped to solid rocket boosters with a 5" naval rifle shooting nuclear shells.

[@kurthauenstein7149]

I read Footfall many yrs ago. The spear throwing thing always tickled me.

[@BradiKal61]

You beat me to it! Like nuclear weapons the Orion was a ship design of last resort when humans had no options except to go big. I'd love to see a movie adaptation of Footfall. The description of the Orion taking off was terrifying. 'God was knocking, and he wanted in bad.'

[@wilemelliott]

@@BradiKal61 whats funny is the design for the real world Orion battle cruiser didn't have the 16 inch guns or spurt gun xray lasers, but it did have dropships and Cahaba Howitzers instead (nuclear explosively formed plasma lance)

[@ultraviolet9863]

'God was knocking, and he wanted in bad.'

[@davidlundbergjeppesen7840]

this is a fine overview of the project and good cinematography as well. but the thumbnail does not depict the Orion drive, it is a depiction of the Daedalus engine which would use laser induced fission reactions to propel a craft through interstellar space. the Daedalus drive is an interesting concept all on its own.

[@Fuck_Snowflakes]

You can't expect this sorry excuse of a channel to properly research anything.

[@BrjanBuckmaster]

Interstellar space? Going at .097% the speed of light (44 years to get to Alpha Centauri), it will take a long time to reach other stars.

[@cheezysot]

Project Daedalus used an intertial confinement FUSION reaction, not fission.

[@paranaenselol]

​​@@BrjanBuckmaster i read some articles that daid it would only take 4 years to get to alpha centauri

[@peeperleviathan2839]

@@BrjanBuckmasterand that’s why we want to go faster than

[@eloquentsarcasm]

As a kid I stumbled upon a book series about a young inventor like Tony Stark called Tom Swift. The novels my grandfather had were the Tom Swift jr ones from back in the 1950's. A nuclear rocket was one of the inventions mentioned in the series, and set me on a lifelong love of science and technology. By the time I read them, they were 30+ years in the past, but the concepts and ideas the author presented in them blew my mind. I hope I have enough decades left to me to see the beginning of something like The Expanse novels, with humanity colonizing Mars and people making lives for themselves out in The Belt.

[@Jon6429]

The possibility that concealed under the Nevada desert sands North of Las Vegas there could be a seventy year old spaceship big enough to pick a fight with an Imperial Star Destroyer is both terrifying and reassuring. It would also explain a lot of things lol

[@jastermereel6949]

You’ve obviously been playing Area 51 on ps2

[@BuckJackson-kc8pb]

Would not surprise me if there is something like that in a prototype build or partially completed.

[@cmd2tuts]

@@BuckJackson-kc8pb Simple logic dictates that it is, because it is possible to build this means we must build one before anyone else does, and so it is for certain that at least one was built. Edit: UN treaties and plain old secrecy will prevent most people from ever seeing one, however there are several instances of nuclear detonations in space such as Starfish Prime and operation fishbowl(a deep dark rabbit hole on its own)

[@davidponseigo8811]

My father was US Air Force and attached to the Defense Atomic Support Agency and Special Weapons Project and worked on this project and multiple others that involved nuclear weapons.

[@concernedpatriot.2221]

Wow ! That’s awesome ! They were truly the greatest generation that ever lived. You must be very proud of your father.

[@alexandermendeyev35]

Wow vely intelesting amelican dad, wolks vely hald on nuclear stuff please tell me mole 🤓

[@alexandermendeyev35]

I got excited when in the 3 body problem series they mentioned this project to achieve 1% the speed of light. Maybe is not possible, but makes me think, everything is really possible, we only need to work together for a common goal. That's it.

[@oneproudbrowncoat]

It's absolutely criminal (if not blasphemous) that this never got implemented.

[@joelcorley3478]

Orion would never have been practical to test and launch from Earth. That's not to say we might not some day build and test such ships outside Earth's atmosphere. Honestly Orion was way ahead of its time. The real criminal loss was Nerva.

[@teddybetts3254]

​@@joelcorley3478 Yes I agree, Nerva was something we should have implemented from the very beginning. I think Orion was ridiculous. Dedalus was at least reasonable, if somewhat beyond our capabilities.

[@JohnV170]

​@@joelcorley3478yeah I wouldn't expect them to use them to get into orbit, but building one in orbit would be able to make it work, if it's already in orbit they can then use it to transfer to wherever they want.

[@STho205]

For all we know the USAF did build and launch Orion or Longshot on the far side of the Moon in the 70s. Apollo got cancelled because it was just a public facing proof of concept for landing astronauts and engineers. The mission could have been launched jointly by the US and Soviets and we'd never have known. There's a lot of stuff in the 40s to today that are still classified mysteries, never to be disclosed. The Cold War was mostly neo colonial theater to keep the Imperialists of Europe from going for each other's throats again every 25 years and dragging the US and USSR into their deadly colonial squabble. Notice when the USSR broke up the European ethnic wars started up immediately in old Yougoslavia, now again 25 years later like clockwork since the time of Julius Caesar.

[@STho205]

@@TheDsgfdssd they hid the A Bomb Trinity site pretty successfully. There are numerous islands in Micronesia the US owns that are prohibited to approach. Bikini Atoll is off limits not even allowing ships within 100 nautical miles or civil aviation fly overs. Skunkworks has lots of secret projects...I dare you to try and get a look.

[@finroddd]

I have always considered this project one of the craziest.

[@Oracle13]

Scientists are supposed to be intelligent. This is just about *THE* dumbest idea one could come up with...

[@oljackie35]

Ulam mentioned in Dark Space, my day is done

[@bryanmchugh1307]

You think THIS is bad Project Pluto is the most INSANE project I have ever even heard of

[@GodzillaJawz]

Orion drives should have been a thing

[@taylor1038]

It's so crazy to think we actually have the tech to go 10% of speed of light, it's just a bit impractical.

[@JohnV170]

We've had the technology to explore far out into space since the 1960s, we started good throughout the 60s but then in the early 70s the government and people lost interest and went back to doing what they do best and that's funding constant wars. I wish humanity focused on exploration. We could be on our way to alpha Centauri right now with a nuclear pulse rocket.

[@keirfarnum6811]

@@JohnV170 We’d be better off developing warp drive.

[@MasterMayhem78]

No we don’t. This is theoretical based on outlandish ‘science’.

[@JohnV170]

@@MasterMayhem78 nuclear detonations aren't theoretical and can absolutely get something up to 10% the speed of light. Nothing outlandish about that it's just a fact.

[@geraldkenneth119]

There’s just something about the idea of a spaceship propelled by nukes that appeals deeply to the human spirit

[@rapidthrash1964]

I love making animations depicting Orion-based spacecraft

[@braderickson9996]

A few things. The amount of testing mentioned, must be done in space, full stop. There is no way, you are using a engine like this, going from the surface to orbit, insane to think otherwise. This engine is made to cover vast distances, not to cover rising from a planetary surface. It is sad to think this country had NERVA, a rated nuclear engine, and in 2023, announcing we will be rediscovering said wheel. To what could have been.

[@hinz1]

NERVA is stupid, because you're still limited in temperature or else the engine/reactor melts. Limited temperature => limited ISP. With Orion, no limit of "combustion" temperature, so nearly infinite ISP

[@michaeldugger8436]

If we had embraced the tech that lead to NERVA and continued to develop it... we'd have at the very least automated missions on exoplanets by now. When fired it, they ended up just having to turn it off because it output so much thrust for so long they'd collected more data than they could reasonably hope to analyze.

[@BGTuyau]

"I cannot change the laws of physics, Captain! A've got to have thirty minutes."

[@CaveJohnsonAperture]

FYI the thumbnail is Project Daedalus, which isn't an Orion project or even a nuclear pulse rocket.

[@hicknopunk]

At least it wasn't a flying pig

[@41gasteve]

Good sci-fi book used this in the story. “Footfall”. In the story, Earth was attacked by an alien race and nukes were used to launch huge platforms with defense craft into space quickly before the invaders could react.

[@richardlangdon712]

I read an article on Orion years ago. The ship they had envisioned for exploring the solar system was the size of the Queen Mary. The motto of the team working on the project was, "Saturn by 76!". That always stuck with me.

[@setituptoblowitup]

Only makes sense in upper stage not Boost phaze❤️‍🔥

[@michaelfried3123]

don't fool yourself, this doesn't make sense anywhere, at anytime, anyhow.

[@bradleyzorg]

Simple math says that the amount of energy captured vs lossed is not efficient@@michaelfried3123 you are correct.

[@hicknopunk]

​@@michaelfried3123makes sense for Orks in 40k

[@SnifferSock]

​@@michaelfried3123get rekt m8

[@CaveJohnsonAperture]

@@michaelfried3123 Made enough sense that pulse rockets are NASA's emergency plan for asteroid re-directs

[@barrybarlowe5640]

Imagine the weight of 5-1/2 trillion nuclear bombs. That's how many you'd need for a 44 year journey to accelerate, then decelerate to destination. Mass-wise, I don't think it's an effective method of travel. Dyson was pulling their leg.

[@WhiteJarrah]

Great video, but the thumbnail is wrong. That the Daedalus rocket, not the Orion rocket.

[@wilemelliott]

isn't your thumbnail "Project Daeldalus" not Orion? That one was supposed to use intertial confinement fusion, not fission

[@noone-zq7my]

So really the 900Kg steel cap plate of the 1957 Pascal-B shot accidentally became the first pusher plate test , it was estimated to have reached 6 times the escape velocity.

[@808bigisland]

Seen the alien ships 18x. Space travel is very elegant. Imagine this contraption decelerating at populated Proxima by spewing plutonium at you…

[@enigma51ted]

Been there done that

[@C21H30O2]

Can confirm, my best friend is a leprechaun.

[@JustinMShaw]

Any ship that can maintain strong acceleration worth a damn is probably spewing something out its backside worth far more firepower than any weapon it might carry.

[@808bigisland]

@@JustinMShaw The alien ships I saw run clean. So.. no.

[@JustinMShaw]

@@808bigisland You could see the entire electromagnetic spectrum as well as any other sign of a reaction drive to verify that? And how did you know it was alien. Basically to your testimony: No.

[@daviddellit8344]

Wow. Interesting. Thank you.

[@Diskord1982]

I've waited and asked for this video for YEARS from this channel. Thank you

[@mikeypiros6647]

stop boot licking ..

[@MrRandomcommentguy]

This will totally work, I'm not being ironic. It really will work.

[@youerny]

I agree, while some practical challenges are not trivial

[@mobeus5019]

I dont really think that the fallout was the biggest challenge to the project. The whole, 10 millisecond between thermonuclear explosions part seems to be a real show stopper. There is no way you could launch that many bombs, that quickly, for long enough to be used as a method of propulsion. If you had ANY failure in the loading or firing mechanism.... you get exploded. This is one of those neat to think about but literally impossible technologies.

[@jackturner3867]

If a train is off of its track for 1 second, it will crash and everyone will die. Not only is this completely possible, its already been done.

[@galvendorondo]

You underestimate the efficiency of modern technology

[@brll5733]

The Thumbnail is Deadalus, not Orion, I think. Which is also a pretty cool project

[@bradleyzorg]

love it. Keep doing what you do. Peace!

[@Norm-ih2rq]

blowing up one atom at a time with lasers is the way to go.. I bet this project will have a come back

[@miguelcastaneda7257]

Ahhh wouldn't this have left a radiation trail as it went...

[@MrSpinteractive]

Awesome - Thanks for the video!

[@meanstavrakas1044]

My father Dr Nicholas M Stavrakas, PHD assisted Dr Stanislaw Ulam when Ulam came to UNCC in 1974. He was stuck on an equation to a US Department of Energy project related to aspects of Orion. It took 2 months but my father solved it for him.

[@MrFlazz99]

Never mind the issue of controlling and containing nuclear explosions (mere materials matters), how would humans be expected to survive the kind of acceleration required to make a craft go so fast so quickly? Correct me if I'm wrong, but astronauts endure around 7g for two minutes getting into orbit (and this is about the limit of human endurance), whereas this sounds like sustained hundreds of g? Interesting for sending unmanned probes out, however and I love how scientists were willing to throw caution to the wind in those days.

[@GamingMadmaxy]

I am a proud scientist working on the project

[@blengi]

watching the cannikin test accelerate cubic kilometre of rock upward at a few Gs with one 5 megaton nuke really shows the awesome absurdity of nuclear physics moving stuff about

[@MasterMayhem78]

I can’t believe this was actually considered. About as silly as the Arca water rocket and the Spin Launch system.

[@tsr207]

Dark Space might want to mention that the image shown is of Daedalus - an proposal by the excellent British Interplanetary Society led by the visionary Alan Bond to reach Barnard's Star .

[@mikesmith-po8nd]

When do any of the Dark channels let facts get in the way?

[@lightfdar]

The icon you put up for the video wasn't a picture of project Orion concept but Project Daedalus. I don't know why you couldn't have found a stock picture of it, as its easy to find them online. Please if your going to put forward educational video don't mislead .

[@zaviergoesboom9759]

why is the thumbnail not an orion drive, and instead some sort of fusion drive? I believe that design is called an inertial confinement fusion drive, which is not project orion

[@commandosolo_193]

The best part of the whole thing is that they kept on trying and finally got one to blast off and into space. They launched from middle of Africa back in the early 70's. Complete success and then it all went quiet. I wonder how far they kept going. With computers today, it stopped most of the issues they had with timing back then.

[@zazugee]

source?

[@ekspatriat]

What are you smoking?

[@guytech7310]

@@zazugee Yeah, They launched one of Egyptian pyramids. Apparently, the pyramids weren't mausoleums, but ancient spaceships! Its all done with anti-gravity tech. You need a lot of mass for the antigravity to work! Did you know that with a special carburetor, any engine can run on water? /sarc LOL!

[@zazugee]

@@guytech7310 there is no proof for all of that.

[@danjumasmith7122]

Imagine using all the Earth's nukes/fissile materials for that project and aliens invade us soon after😂😂😂

[@joeh.3135]

Probably would have caught on had they been able to find a pilot for that legendary manhole cover 😂 in the testing phase of nuclear weapons .

[@silent1967]

This project was Freaking Nuts !

[@prudencepineapple9448]

“ Hi! We come from the planet called Earth, located within the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. We come in peace to further our knowledge!” .............whilst emitting deadly radioactive plumes from the rear! Yes, I know, the Universe is full of it and much worse!

[@scottramson4591]

The strength of an object moving at a greater speed seems to me should be the primary question. Such as an objects Roche Limit is the measurement from tidal forces ripping apart a smaller object from the gravity of a larger masses object.

[@RichardLucas]

Acorn from Space: The Kecksburg Incident? Plausible explanation?

[@AdirondackVirtual]

The video thumbnail is an image of the Daedalus project pulse fusion craft, not the Orion nuclear pulse craft.

[@csdn4483]

I had professors in college that worked on NERVA, the follow on to Orion. It looks like NASA is starting to look at NERVA again and they should. NERVA's thrust is capable of getting us to Mars in about a month where as presently it takes 6 months to a year using chemical rockets.

[@greengabe5]

Man the cocaine they had back then must’ve been insanely pure💀

[@guytech7310]

Well it was the era of LSD, S3x, Drugs & Rock-n-Roll! /sarc

[@bendershome4discountorphan859]

The moon would be a perfect place to restart testing

[@Minong_Manitou_Mishepeshu]

Needs those quantum entangled comms like Raytheon sold in the 70s, then you wouldn't have to wait 50 years for phone calls.

[@wikkid1show569]

This particular forum has many flaws. I've been studying it to improve on another in which Nuclear detonation propulsion isn't required. Getting this to orbit would only have it come crashing down due to the gravity problem. The next problem would be wherever it was launched from would be irradiated. So I came up with a variation of this but will only discuss it with a contract. My goal is simple, beat our biggest obstacle. Gravity plays on every launch. So it consumes fuel and will put big crafts like Starship in a need to refuel . I got this beat

[@joejackson2102]

The thumbnail is the Daedaulus starship. Not Orion.

[@plucas1]

The thumbnail is Project Daedalus, NOT Project Orion.

[@Innomen]

This is the best way to do it. I hate that my species is so stupid and callow. We'd be all over the solar system by now.

[@MonkeyspankO]

People used to have balls and ambition. What happened to our species?

[@notyouraveragegoldenpotato]

Social engineering to control the monkeys to keep peeling bananas for the few. Period

[@mikesmith-po8nd]

Tik-Tok.

[@jameswilson4732]

And it’s 2023 and we still can’t make it back to the moon!

[@markhuebner7580]

The Carnot cycle limits the efficiency of a heat engine, T-hot minus T-cold(after expansion of the heated gases), divided by T-cold. Fusion-(heat maximum) is much hotter than Fission-(heat maximum), and Fission-(heat maximum) is hotter than combustion-(heat maximum).

[@3d1e00]

I guess they could test this with cellulose casing now to reduce shrapnel from conventional

[@perkins1439]

When I first saw the thumbnail I thought it was a hot robot chick

[@Chobittsu]

>Makes video about Project Orion >uses a thumbnail of Project Daedalus Classic.

[@CaptainDonut0]

General Atomic.... 5he one that made the Mr. Handy and Ms. Nany robots?

[@trolly4233]

the thumbnail is a fusion drive/nuclear thermal rocket. not orion.

[@VYBEKAT]

Amazing video!

[@j.robertsergertson4513]

Hmmm? An experimental space ship detonating thousands of nuclear bombs ,full of fissionable nuclear material as fuel . What could possibly go catastrophically wrong? Thank God ,that insanity was stopped! Can you imagine the devastation if that crashed or blew up on lift off!

[@malcolmdrake6137]

You always want to watch a video by someone who doesn't even know what they're depicting in their thumbnail.

[@joshkelso123]

Get Silent Running vibes from this

[@bdeas]

Let's GOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

[@zenokarlsbach4292]

🙉! Very nice and relevant.

[@magnitudematrix2653]

Model the rotation detonation engine to a nuclear application. Nuclear detonation wave engine.

[@luthermcgee3767]

It actually may work. If so, we in several millenia may become an extrasolar species. Small moves, small moves.

[@benjohnson9595]

Possible black hole after every blast

[@ChiefBridgeFuser]

"1mm thick and 20km in diameter" sure, that's a realistic limit😮😂😂😅

[@eujebenqo6159]

how do you get orion off ground? from where you launch? the place will be destroyed.

[@guytech7310]

Details, Details, You just got to ignore them! /sarc

[@youerny]

Pacific. A platform in the ocean

[@FP194]

Some interesting trivia The ship in the movie, deep impact used the name Orion for the nuclear powered engine platform that got them to the comet

[@Wayzor_]

Wanna-be-nazi-thug

[@Wayzor_]

the 3 stands for your penis size

[@burntsider8457]

5;21 "...a diameter of 20 kilometers" ?

[@schrimblo]

the rocket in the thumbnail was a Daedalus drive, an orion drive looks more like a big nuclear pogostick

[@manuel.camelo]

106.000 years?? DAMN we're f..

[@auro1986]

something like this only compact in size propells those space crafts that go to end of solar system and beyond

[@v4skunk739]

No not really. We need ufo anti gravity tech to do FTL travel.

[@j-twd930]

@@v4skunk739 No dude, we don't need that. This is REAL technology that we can actually build TODAY

[@bsdooby]

Problem is lift-off and piercing the atmosphere...Only kinetically optimal fuel can be used (kerosene).

[@hicknopunk]

Must make a god awful racket taking off...what could go wrong? 🤔

[@harrygooch834]

Thumbnail had me looking twice

[@CaveJohnsonAperture]

Its Project Daedalus not even what this vid is about

[@human_cube]

BONK!

[@AndrewBlucher]

"Proven in theory" LOL A new use of the word proven.

[@limabravo6065]

Ah the boom boom machine

[@Jagdtyger2A]

The Medusa variant was much more efficient and would acheive faster travel time

[@Mrcometo]

2:20 I think this is wrong. The orbit needs approx 7.5 km/sec.

[@pixelnazgul]

Genius. Rocket is essentially a bomb. And biggest bomb uses atom.

[@PronatorTendon]

Proxima Centauri is about 25 trillion miles away, an utterly unfathomable distance

[@JustinMShaw]

I like to think of it as around 1500 light days. At least that puts it on a scale that's relatable to the solar system.

[@PronatorTendon]

@@JustinMShaw I get it but it's only relatable to me in the sense that the earth is 8 light minutes from the sun. Works about as well as 25 trillion walks to the liquor store

[@JustinMShaw]

@@PronatorTendon Neptune's orbit diameter is around a third or a quarter of one light day. So we can think of Proxima Centauri as being a few thousand times further away than that. And of course that by itself is a barely imaginable distance.

[@charlescurran1289]

I think Jules Verne beat them all with the idea in 1865.

[@leonardtozzolo7963]

Still relevant 👀

[@600wheel]

One xtra person dies?!? That always seems easy for officials to just brush off but maybe that official should have to give up his life or an arm or leg too OK something like this and see how much more conscientious the world becomes. It’s always easier to sacrifice the unknown but when it suddenly affects you directly everything changes

[@MyMikey88]

So if you would have a space ship you would go to another star system?To do what there? how about nearby Earth-like planets with water?//hydrogen fusion is a good idea to generate power for space travel

[@AndrewHillis_2024]

IF ONLY WE COULD MASS PRODUCE ANTI-MATTER AT LOW COST ! ! ! THAT WOULD BE A REAL GAME CHANGER & CHANGE EVERYTHING ABOUT SPACEFLIGHT ! ! !

[@dwilson284]

Aaaand….assuming it gets up to speed, what slows it down? Just because it’s nuclear doesn’t make it magic…because physics.

[@nattersting976]

Great idea, but to really go fast you need to stop thinking about distance,instead field dynamics.

[@markhuebner7580]

Radiation is a hazard of the space environment, and it is also a hazard with nuclear powered rocket engines.

[@John_Gillman]

Video: Project Orion Thumbnail: Project Daedalus