Author Topic: Nuclear pulse propulsion (project Orion) ground launch, feasibility and cost.  (Read 19765 times)

Offline marks.

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I have read different opinions on option of Nuclear pulse propulsion (project Orion) ground launch in the future.

In some article about Orion project, Ben Pearson from Arizona university wrote that, the biggest problems at this time were :
1. How to allow a pusher plate of metal to survive the almost impossibly high temperatures. This should be solved according article.
2. The shock absorber must be able to handle pressures of up to 50,000 pounds per square inch repeating it self as much as twice a second for as many times as 2000 times in a row. This was never solved during the project. There were at least a dozen different plans all of which seemed to not work.
Article also claims that, Freeman Dyson (project leader) now doubts they could have made a pusher plate that would withstand the great pressure of an atom bomb so many times so repeatedly. (using information from book of his son George Dyson)
Still author support potential ground based launch of Orion project spaceship from Earth’s Magnetic North Pole to minimize effects of EMP, chance of potential nuclear fallout (not big according to him) and because it is easily accessible by sea and very little inhabited.
Can we now after 50 years, with current technology or in this century, create the shock absorbers, able to support Orion spaceship to flight at least to low Earth orbit. Are there only economic and engineering challenges, or also some strong physical limits.
Do you personally support ground based launch of Orion project space ship with the same condition like Ben Pearson.     
In second article from Encyclopedia Astronautica. Orion project spaceship  cost to lift a cargo to orbit (if spread over a single flight) would be $250 per pound, far cheaper than the accepted figure of $5,000 to $6,000 per pound for a Shuttle flight. (Space X falcon should have around $2,500 per pound).They calculate probably only with cost of propulsion units (bombs)
not with all developing and construction cost.
I know, that cost of fuel was negligible for Space shuttle launch, but what do you think would be (once research and development has finished ) cost to lift the cargo to orbit of Orion project Spacecraft, compare for example with Space X Falcon $2,500 per pound. Please give me some numbers.     
 

Offline BrightLight

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You might want to look (Google) at the work of Johndale Solem, a retired los alamos national laboratory scientist, he worked extensively on detonation type propulsion and has numerous publications on the topic.

Offline grondilu

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In a new thread about Orion, I think it's worth mentioning this great documentary on the subject:




I think it's clear in this documentary that the main obstacle for Orion is nuclear fallout.  So I doubt an Orion-style vehicle will ever be launched from the ground.

However, since there are reasonable hopes for fully-reusable space launchers in the coming decade, can we imagine building an Orion spacecraft in orbit and launch it from there?
« Last Edit: 05/16/2013 05:00 pm by grondilu »

Offline Vultur

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It could probably be done.

step 1: buy one of those guano islands in the Pacific that is mined down to nothing (ecosystem already essentially a total loss thus you can't really make it worse)

step 2: prepare the launchpad with a smooth surface that won't kick up dust (fallout)... I think graphite's been suggested?

step 3: launch essentially fallout free Orion, send thousands of tons of orbital manufacturing equipment into space

step 4: repeat 3 three or four times

step 5: build space colonies, solar power satellites, etc. from near-earth asteroid materials

---

However, I think the window to actually do this closed in the 60s.

I'm pretty much an environmentalist, but I think a realistic analysis would quite possibly show that the benefit of having the manufacturing facilities in space that would allow economically feasible space-based solar power (plus all the other advantages), even if you just look at the environmental benefits and not all the other ones, would outweigh some uranium etc. in the atmosphere.

It's not politically feasible now, nor in the lifetime of anyone alive today (well, I guess China could do it, maybe, if they didn't mind the international public outcry).

Offline kkattula

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I used to be a proponent of what I liked to call the 'One-Time Orion'.  Basically build a really big Orion, and launch ten or even hundreds of thousands of tons into orbit to kick-start a space-based economy. It would add a negligible amount (<1%) of fallout to the existing bomb test residue.

I still think it would be a reasonable option if we needed to launch quickly, a la Footfall or some other emergency. But it's such a big project, the total cost is huge, even if the cost per pound of payload is very low.

If someone has several tens of billions to spend on a launch system, they'd be better off building infrastructure to manufacture and launch lots of 'Big Dumb Rockets'. Something with at least a reusable first stage, optimised for cost not payload efficiency. Launching weekly or better. May be 5 to 10 thousand tons per year. For decades.

It's definitely doable, there just needs to be an economically justifiable reason to spend the money.
« Last Edit: 05/18/2013 05:46 am by kkattula »

Offline JohnFornaro

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I used to be a proponent of what I liked to call the 'One-Time Orion'.  Basically build a really big Orion, and launch ten or even hundreds of thousands of tons into orbit to kick-start a space-based economy. It would add a negligible amount (<1%) of fallout to the existing bomb test residue.

I gotta say, yer thinkin' big here.

Just for grins, how big would the rocket be?
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline RanulfC

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I used to be a proponent of what I liked to call the 'One-Time Orion'.  Basically build a really big Orion, and launch ten or even hundreds of thousands of tons into orbit to kick-start a space-based economy. It would add a negligible amount (<1%) of fallout to the existing bomb test residue.

I still think it would be a reasonable option if we needed to launch quickly, a la Footfall or some other emergency. But it's such a big project, the total cost is huge, even if the cost per pound of payload is very low.

If someone has several tens of billions to spend on a launch system, they'd be better off building infrastructure to manufacture and launch lots of 'Big Dumb Rockets'. Something with at least a reusable first stage, optimised for cost not payload efficiency. Launching weekly or better. May be 5 to 10 thousand tons per year. For decades.

It's definitely doable, there just needs to be an economically justifiable reason to spend the money.
Was that a "one-shot" Orion or a "Nuclear Verne Gun" concept? :)

The second has (IIRC, going to have to find my notes or the paper that mentioned the "Gabriel" asteroid defense concept) been considered for a seriously "quick-reaction/higher-than-hell-Delta-V" system to ground launch an Orion type propulsion system with pretty much NO fallout of radiation release.
However repeat from above about cost and resources issues :) (And the fact you can't launch anything that can't stand several hundred Gs without turning to paste :) )

And I might as well mention the idea of using chemical explosions to power a surface-to-orbit Orion flight. The original Orion test program included a test vehicle (the "Hot Rod") that was propelled by chemical charges (C4) for general testing of the overall concept. As part of the "future" test program it was planned that a dedicated "detonation" facility be set up which would, (in effect) be a giant "disk" swapping system that would rapidly place large "disks" of C4 above a simulated pusher-plate and detonate them to study the effects of debris impact and pusher-plate abiliation.

Ground launch of an Orion was ALWAYS seen as a bit problimatical as there had to be a discrete distance between the pusher plate and the explosion. Coupling of the blast through atmospheric and ground debris effects meant that for this inital "blast" the distance between the propulsion unit and the pusher-plate would have to be several hundred to a thousand feet. Ways around this issue were discussed such as a water-filled "basin" above which the Orion would be suspended. The propulsion-unit would be under water and detonated there to mitigate both fall out effects as well as blast effects on the Orion itself.

Also discussed somewhat was the idea of a building a very large "shape-charge" with conventional explosives to initially loft the Orion, along with using chemical charges in place of some of the initial nuclear charges in order to cut down on the contamination. The biggest "issue" with the idea of course is that "conventional" explosives normally need to be much heavier and less compact that a siimilar nuclear device.
I say "normally" because there is a class of explosives that were considered then and have been brought up again since. These so called "Super High Explosive" (SHE) compounds are able to reach much higher yields than "normal" explosives compounds, but are not considered "suitable" for normal use.

Why? Well the SHE type explosives tend to have what are called "Negative Operational Use" properties that normal explosives do not have, such as spontaneous detonation after six months of storage or toxic off-gassing during storage or other "minor" issues :)
("Exploding" is all well and good you see but for operational use you really, REALLY want it to do so when YOU choose and to be a safe as possible to store and handle on a regular basis :))

While this is normally a very big "down-side" for an explosive in the context of normal use and operations of munitions these are not exactly show-stopper issues for something like an Orion operation as you can actually produce and use the SHE type of compounds in a more rapid and controlled manner than would be applicable. So it was found "possible" to use something like the SHE compounds for lower power but less contaminating "pulse-units" though the over all size and mass of even the SHE-conventional pulse-units would be pretty big.

A "newer" concept however has looked at removing the mass-and-size issues from using SHE to ground launch an Orion type vehicle by actually removing the "pulse-units" from the Orion vehicle itself. The idea is to "beam" the pulse-units to an Orion in flight thereby eliminating the overall mass and compexity of a seperate "conventional" (albeit SHE) explosive system from the Orion and placing it on the ground instead. How do you "beam" high explosives to a spacecraft in flight? Rather simple in concept though putting it into practice is a bit more troublesome :)

Shoot it. The idea is to have a very high speed cannon shoot shells containing SHE to intersect the vehicle pusher plate at the proper distance and time and have the shell detonate driving the vehicle forward. (Its actually somewhat more complicated overall than that since the shell has to NOT hit the plate and the shell itself has to be designed to create non-damaging debris, etc, but in basic principle...)

I've added some links below for those interested :)

External Pulsed Plama Propulsion paper (Intial mention of the Gabriel concept) http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20000021516_2000013018.pdf

External Pulsed Plama Propulsion Analysis Maturation paper (Which mentions both Gabriel and the "Beamed" chemical propulsion concept)
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20000097368_2000138015.pdf

This posting to the Unwanted Blog has a listing and some discussion on types and yields of various possible explosive combinations and some discussion of SHE type chemicals.
http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=5864
(Note: The original NASA document is no longer available on NTRS and the link is "broken" in the post)

Randy
From The Amazing Catstronaut on the Black Arrow LV:
British physics, old chap. It's undignified to belch flames and effluvia all over the pad, what. A true gentlemen's orbital conveyance lifts itself into the air unostentatiously, with the minimum of spectacle and a modicum of grace. Not like our American cousins' launch vehicles, eh?

Offline kkattula

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I used to be a proponent of what I liked to call the 'One-Time Orion'.  Basically build a really big Orion, and launch ten or even hundreds of thousands of tons into orbit to kick-start a space-based economy. It would add a negligible amount (<1%) of fallout to the existing bomb test residue.

I gotta say, yer thinkin' big here.

Just for grins, how big would the rocket be?

Well with Orion, to some degree mass is your friend. More mass equals lower g's. Partly due to F=ma, and partly due to truly massive shock absorbers.

So for a sense of scale think Nimitz class aircraft carrier mounted stern down on the Super Dome.

From what I've read, the initial launch propulsion units would be quite small. Sub-kiloton yield. Because there's a lot of blast effect from the dense atmosphere. At high altitude in near vacuum, larger yields would be needed since it's harder to couple the nuclear detonation to rocket propulsion.

This suggests that the first ground fired unit could be conventional explosive. But I don't see the point since the second unit would have to detonate when the vehicle's only 1 or 2 hundred metres above the launch pad.

Maybe the vehicle could be built in a deep pit, like a giant gas gun barrel, and use gas pressure to launch it to a reasonable altitude before firing the first nuclear propulsion unit. That would cut down on the fallout.

Offline cordwainer

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I don't think a ground launch of Orion would ever be completely fallout free. That being said I think an underground launch like a Verne shot would work well enough to launch a fairly large payload without discernible fallout, and would not violate international nuclear test treaties.

Offline kkattula

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What about a floating Orion, launched from the surface of a large, deep, freshwater lake? Apparently most of the fallout from water detonation is from vaporized sea-salts.


Edit:  Or better still, the Antarctic or Greenland ice sheets.  They're also fresh water. :)
« Last Edit: 05/25/2013 11:23 am by kkattula »

Offline Vultur

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That being said I think an underground launch like a Verne shot would work well enough to launch a fairly large payload without discernible fallout, and would not violate international nuclear test treaties.

Hmm, really? If so, I wonder why e.g China is not working on it now. Sure, the G-forces are deadly, but you could launch a huge space habitat, empty, and then fill it up with crew and fragile equipment using conventional rockets.

Offline grondilu

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Hmm, really? If so, I wonder why e.g China is not working on it now. Sure, the G-forces are deadly, but you could launch a huge space habitat, empty

How would you make sure you launch it on a convenient orbit?  You don't want it to just fall on earth.   If you launch it with some ascension angle it will be deflected by the atmosphere and get a curved trajectory.   Such a trajectory could be calculated I guess, but it seems risky.
« Last Edit: 05/25/2013 06:47 pm by grondilu »

Offline Vultur

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Hmm, really? If so, I wonder why e.g China is not working on it now. Sure, the G-forces are deadly, but you could launch a huge space habitat, empty

How would you make sure you launch it on a convenient orbit?  You don't want it to just fall on earth.
Wouldn't the angle of the launch tunnel from the underground chamber to the atmosphere determine the trajectory the payload flew?

Yes, you'd need a burn to circularize the orbit, I think. 

Offline grondilu

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Wouldn't the angle of the launch tunnel from the underground chamber to the atmosphere determine the trajectory the payload flew?

It'd still be complicated.  I suspect the gradient of pressure in the atmosphere would induce a deflection, with a tendency to curve the trajectory towards the ground.

Offline MattJL

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Wouldn't high altitude (but not quite space) detonations produce an artificial radiation belt a la Starfish Prime?

Ignoring the effects of fallout, that could be a real mess.

Offline Vultur

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Even if you could power a space cannon with a nuclear bomb, I'm not sure there'd be any point.

If you build it crudely, you're just nuking the payload: you can't make a shock absorber for that kind of shock. 

Are you sure? Apparently some people think you can...


You could use something non-nuclear, if you could find something else with comparable energy. But multi-megaton power sources are not a dime a dozen.

I'm skeptical of light gas guns able to shoot payloads of this size in a reasonable time.

Wouldn't high altitude (but not quite space) detonations produce an artificial radiation belt a la Starfish Prime?

Ignoring the effects of fallout, that could be a real mess.

Yes, probably... which is one of many reasons the window to ever actually do a conventional Orion (at least launched from Earth) probably closed in the 60s.

But the nuclear Verne Gun wouldn't have this problem.

Offline Patchouli

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In a new thread about Orion, I think it's worth mentioning this great documentary on the subject:




I think it's clear in this documentary that the main obstacle for Orion is nuclear fallout.  So I doubt an Orion-style vehicle will ever be launched from the ground.

However, since there are reasonable hopes for fully-reusable space launchers in the coming decade, can we imagine building an Orion spacecraft in orbit and launch it from there?

The fall out is a solvable issue surprisingly enough.

Since the bulk of the fallout is generated by dust getting sucked into the nuclear fire ball you simply build a large steel platform to launch from.

Pick a small desert island some where in the Pacific and pave it over with concrete and steel.
« Last Edit: 05/27/2013 01:24 am by Patchouli »

Offline QuantumG

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Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline Moe Grills

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  Even if it were all practical, as far as engineering goes,
then you run into the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

 Do any of you seriously contemplate that Project Orion will ever be revived and become a reality? Even in your children's or grandchildren's lifetimes?

  Or are you simply dreaming or clinging to a fantasy that will never come true?

Not even China, which never signed the Test Ban Treaty, would dare try to
create their own project, like unto PO.

Offline RanulfC

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Wouldn't high altitude (but not quite space) detonations produce an artificial radiation belt a la Starfish Prime?

Ignoring the effects of fallout, that could be a real mess.

That would be the reason given for launching from the poles :)

There's also a lingering concept that needs to be addressed in that the "pulse-units" are called that NOT because they are just trying to avoid saying "nuclear-bombs" but because the pulse units are very much NOT "typical" nuclear devices.

They are very low fall-out, supressed EMP, directed energy devices that simply don't act like a "normal" atomic bombs when detonated. They would have very little effect on the radiation belts even if launched from the equator.

The fall out is a solvable issue surprisingly enough.

Since the bulk of the fallout is generated by dust getting sucked into the nuclear fire ball you simply build a large steel platform to launch from.

Pick a small desert island some where in the Pacific and pave it over with concrete and steel.
You're still blowing up 800 inefficient, dirty fission bombs in the atmosphere, and they probably have to be based on plutonium, which is nasty all by itself for an extremely long time, even ignoring the fission products.
You might want to actually read up on Orion and especially the design of the pulse units themselves. You're mixing up fission bombs with the fission pulse units and they were not "inefficent" nor "dirty" and the majority of designed used U238 not Plutonium because that material got much better and cleaner results.

Quote
I don't think the problem ever was with the first few shots at ground level.

No that was and always had been the biggist issue because a ground launch would have generated the maximum amount of fall out and contamination. That's why so much effort was put into finding ways to loft the Orion prior to firing the first pulse unit.

  Even if it were all practical, as far as engineering goes,
then you run into the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Yep, so far that's the main reason why people have been looking for a way around that treaty :) The engineering is solid and has continued to be worked on since before the official project was shelved. Politics (and especially the politics of "control" of nuclear materials) has been the main show stopper since the begining.

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Do any of you seriously contemplate that Project Orion will ever be revived and become a reality? Even in your children's or grandchildren's lifetimes?
Seriously? EPPP pretty much beats the heck out of any other form of propulsion we've found so far. Orion type EPPP systems enable ridiculously high mass space programs with so much "margin" as can barely be imagined. I don't happen to see anyone of the current generation suddenly getting a sudden epiphany and realizing how much time and money has been spent ignoring a viable option because of misinformation and fear-mongering for the last 50+ years but I also don't see future generations being blinded by OUR obvious bias and fears either.

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Or are you simply dreaming or clinging to a fantasy that will never come true?
Never is quite a long time and one should NEVER assume that later generations are going to be as stupid as you are :)

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Not even China, which never signed the Test Ban Treaty, would dare try to
create their own project, like unto PO.
While China has not SIGNED the Test Ban Treaty they have agreed to abide by it and last I heard are not planning any open air bomb tests. Like most nations that have a "serious" (already existing) Nuclear weapons program they plan on doing more covert and harder for others to get data from underground or other test methods. They might raise international ire if they were to persue an active "Orion" like program but then again they might not. Probably the biggest issue with such a program is the lack of international "standards" to cover such a program. After all the "pulse-units" are NOT weapons and can not be converted to being usable AS weapons without a significant amount of work. On the other hand the ability to make numerous "pulse-units" in and of itself speaks to having a very capable and extensive nuclear program that CAN be used to produce bombs in significant quantities.

The construction and production of pulse-units should be a fairly straight forward and visible program given a build up of the current regulatory and inspection programs available for weapons tracking and varification. This only currenty "applies" to the US and Russia though and though China is supposedly part of the "system" there is still a lot of work to get them to the same compliance levels those to nations are currently at.
(The political "hope" here is that by getting China to become involved that will intice India, Pakistan, et-al, to come into the program as well. Hope springs eternal I've heard it said but I think this one is going to remain an unfullfilled wish myself...)

China COULD do it, for that matter so could progably India but not many other nations that I can think of. I don't think they will for the simple reason that there is no current incentive for any nation to do so. There is nothing in space that gives any solid "reason" to put forth the money and resources to build up the capability that Orion would allow. Not even planetary survival.

My opinion is however that we are pretty rapidly backing ourselves into a "corner" that only an "Orion-like" system will be capable of getting us out of. The consistant and constant lack of "action" on the subject of planetary defense is leading to a point where the only "viable" option we have should we actually discover a "threat" is going to require swift action over a very limited window. The only "defense" system capable of meeting that kind of compressed scale would be something Orion-like similar to the GABRIEL system.

Randy
From The Amazing Catstronaut on the Black Arrow LV:
British physics, old chap. It's undignified to belch flames and effluvia all over the pad, what. A true gentlemen's orbital conveyance lifts itself into the air unostentatiously, with the minimum of spectacle and a modicum of grace. Not like our American cousins' launch vehicles, eh?

 

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