Explore the Orion project - the secret plan of manufacturing spacecraft operated by atomic bombs

Instead of using chemical fuels, small "atomic bombs" will be used to push giant spacecraft at a faster pace and to carry a much larger load.

Since mid-2017, billionaire Elon Musk has surprised the world by talking about his ambition. That ambition is becoming closer to reality when images of Falcon Heavy missiles and missiles are expected to help humans conquer Mars. According to SpaceX's announcement, Falcon Heavy will become the most powerful rocket in the world today.

With a length of up to 70m, a width of 12.2m and a main body diameter of 3.66m, the total weight of Falcon Heavy reaches more than 1,420 tons. The missile has two stratums, with the first pushing stage consisting of three launchers with thrust reaching more than 23,000 kN, the second thrust having a thrust of 934 kN. With such a boosting engine, Falcon Heavy could bring up to 64 tons of cargo to Earth's low orbit, and it would be reduced to 16.6 tons if the destination was Mars.

The low performance of chemical rockets forces manufacturers to balance the load and fuel volume, so this limits the amount of cargo that can be carried on long journeys. In real terms, chemical rockets typically cost up to 16 tons of fuel to put a ton of load on orbit, and about 1,000 tons of fuel per ton of load on the Moon.

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy boosters.

But imagine a spacecraft 60m high, weighing about 4,000 tons, but capable of bringing up 1,600 tons to orbit with the crew of dozens of people, enough for a small settlement group on distant crystals. sticky. Not only conquering Mars, the ship is also a means for humans to reach Saturn. And like SpaceX's rockets, this entire spacecraft is reusable.

How a spacecraft can achieve high performance and be able to reach such distant places, the Orion project is the answer to that. By dropping atomic bombs below the ship's tails and detonating them, the spacecraft will "ride" on shock waves generated by the explosion to advance forward with tremendous acceleration and Push pulses last up to 6,000 seconds, 14 times more than chemical rockets.

Before Orion, there were many other projects that wanted to exploit the terrible energy from atomic nuclei to motivate missiles to move out into space. Most of these projects harness the heat emitted from them to heat jet fuel expansion, such as liquid Hydrogen, and generate thrust when spraying through a nozzle.

While it works under static test conditions, when tested in the harsh conditions of a space trip, these engines do not show reliability, when they are completely available. can melt if the jet fuel unit is not operating correctly. The risk of a nuclear reactor that can explode at any moment in the atmosphere is not pleasant. Therefore, in the end these projects were canceled.

Meanwhile, Orion takes a different approach to previous projects on how to exploit this energy source.

Orion's birth

In 1957, the Soviet Union shocked the world by launching the world's first artificial satellite and the more it urged the US space program to act faster. That led to the creation of NASA and reluctance to use military missiles for civilian programs, to race to the Moon.

It also opens the door for some other neglected projects. One of them is Orion. Sponsored by DARPA's predecessor, ARPA, the Orion project was launched in 1957 under the guidance of atomic weapons designer Theodore Taylor at General Atomic, based in California.

Drawing depicting Orion.

Founded in 1955, General Atomic is part of the US Atomic Peace program. In order to find applications for peace from nuclear energy, this project is famous for inventing nuclear reactors for TRIGA research purposes. From 1957 to 1965, General Atomic recruited 50 people for the Orion project and spent $ 10.4 million. In order to increase the credibility of Washington, they invited Freeman Dyson, a physicist, as an advisor and Taylor's team also had other scientists from the Manhattan project.

Like nuclear engines, Orion was conceived after the first atomic bomb exploded. Members of the Manhattan project team, the Polish-American mathematician, Stanislaw Ulam wondered, what would happen if instead of using rockets to carry bombs, people used bombs to carry rockets?

The basic principle behind Orion is very simple and it is similar to the idea of ​​German inventor Hermann Ganswindt who proposed it in 1880. That is to build a spaceship that will be pushed away by throwing a block. dynamite entered a steel bell and detonated it.

For Orion spacecraft, it will be an atomic bomb that will be released from the tail of the ship and when it reaches a preprogrammed distance, the bomb will explode. The bomb will be covered with a special material, like polystyrene, to create a plasma shock wave and push the ship forward. When the shockwave dissipates, another bomb is released and the process continues.

The drawing depicts the propulsion module on the Orion ship, including the atomic bomb cavity.

By the end of 1958, the team had to consider a long list of math questions for this ship. What is the size of the ship? What is the size of the bomb? How many explosives are needed? What is the ratio? How much load can it carry? How long will each specific pulse last? To what extent does the crew need a high level of radiation protection? Can the ship withstand the shock waves? What is the explosion temperature? How to speed up? And how will the shockwave spread?

Theoretical calculations

In addition to theoretical work, the Orion team must also experiment on the field of their principles, as well as the technology to exploit it. In 1959, the group was allowed by the US Navy to use their Point Loma facility in San Diego for testing with conventional explosives. The prototype is a 3.3-foot engine model, designed to drop 6 explosives RDX in turn. Every time a block goes to the end of the rope, it explodes and another block is dropped. The test sample flew for 23 seconds and reached a height of 56m before being recovered by parachute.

From their tests and calculations, the team found that the basic problem of this spacecraft was in stark contrast to chemical rockets. With spacecraft using chemical rockets, the mass dominates almost every other factor: it must be reduced as much as possible. The shells of amplifiers are made thinner and electronic devices have to be scaled down - each strut, each bolt, each screw has to be reduced every excess microgram.

The load levels vary with the 20m high push module of the Orion ship.

Orion is completely different. Mathematical calculations show that, to survive after the destruction of a 0.03 kiloton bomb, the ship must weigh at least 800 tons. However, creating such a small bomb is extremely difficult. Calculations show the answer, the bigger the ship, the more effective it will be. In real terms, an Orion ship can weigh thousands or even tens of thousands of tons to work.

In 1959, a basic model for Orion was born. It will be as tall as a 20-storey building, with a diameter of 40m, weighs about 4,000 tons and can take 1,600 tons to orbit before returning to Earth. According to Dyson, Orion will be 'created like a submarine, not an airplane,' with the use of steel and standard shipbuilding techniques. In fact, they expect the ship to be built by a submarine manufacturer, instead of an airline carrier.

Orion's fuel - "Atomic bombs"

Throwing an atomic bomb out of the spacecraft and taking advantage of its shockwave to move is risky, but it's completely grounded. Previous ideas Orion envisioned a propulsion system with a giant bell or a steel ball to cover the explosion. Compared to chemical engines, this system can generate millions of times more energy, gas speeds hundreds of times and temperatures can reach millions of degrees when shock waves hit the ship. These will lead to too many problems and need a different approach.

The bombs that served the Orion project were not the military weapons available. They are designed to be small (about 15cm wide and weigh about 140kg), containing as little Uranium and Plutonium as possible, with a capacity of about 0.15 kiloton.

The drawing depicts the design of a "bomb" to propel the ship Orion.

Thousands of such bombs are contained in empty spaces in the middle of the ship. When accelerating, these bombs will be loaded onto conveyor belts with a Gatling machine-like mechanism to shoot through a stern hole at speeds of up to four transmitters per minute before exploding at a distance of 20-30. m.

Each bomb has the same operation as anti-tank missile warheads, with the detonating block being nuclear and conical pieces of copper in conventional warheads replaced by other materials such as tungsten, polystyrene or even ice lice. It was really a mechanism to successfully transfer the explosive energy to push the ship forward.

For a standard Orion ship, about 800 'bombs' will need to be released within 6 minutes to propel it to an orbit of 483 km. Each explosion will accelerate the ship by 32 km / h and need several thousand such bombs for an interplanetary voyage.

King of all kinds of dampers

Of course, shockwaves with such great power will not spread to Orion's unprotected modules. Instead, there will be a giant push plate made of steel or other heavy metal with a volume of 500 to 1,000 tons. It will be covered with a plastic-like insulation layer of the spacecraft shell to protect it from abrasion and maximum absorption of energy from shock waves, while allowing rapid cooling of the plasma block before to the next explosion.

However there is still another problem. The atomic bomb will cause the ship to reach 10,000 G acceleration, while the normal safety limit for humans is only about 5 G. This means they need a solution to protect passengers and crew. of flight. If not the pressure from the sudden acceleration of the whole ship will crush everyone present on it.

The design of the giant push plate at the end of the ship.

It was a giant shock absorber - the king of shock absorbers - equipped for Orion. According to the design, just behind the upper plate is a giant air bag filled with inert gas. Behind it is a series of large pistons arranged in a circle, acting like a catapult on a carrier, but in the opposite way. It uses a system of cylinders, revolutions, springs and magnetic clutches to absorb and disperse the impact of each shock wave.

By adjusting to the frequency of the shock wave, the acceleration can be reduced to only 4 G, an acceptable level. However, the entire propulsion plate and the damping system will become quite complicated, as researchers also have to consider cases of non-explosive or explosive bombs but not at critical mass levels.

Design drawing for the giant shock absorber of Orion ship.

Although calculations were made for landings on the Moon, the team seemed to assume that repeating Apollo's feat was not worthy of Orion, so they expected a flight to Mars on 1965. The trip to Red Planet will take 258 days. Even the project team expected to reach Saturn (Saturn) in 1970. It was not only the landing on the Moon, but instead, they hoped to start settling on their surface.

Currently, a mission to Mars only aims to put on a self-propelled car or a small group of 3 astronauts, the Orion project plans to bring 20 to 50 adventurers, to act as a group. Small plays an outpost role for a mission lasting up to 4 years. From Mars, they discovered and took water to launch a bomb and direct the ship to Saturn.

Not stopping there, with loads up to thousands of tons for the interplanetary voyage, Orion is seen as a way to reach the entire Solar System and beyond. With such a vision, just a short time later, the drawing for a more advanced 10,000-ton Orion was ready.

The crew module is not only spacious but also fully equipped.

Difficulties outside technical factors

The technical problems were almost completed but the testing was only conducted through computer models and conventional explosives. Meanwhile, the project needs to quickly switch to testing with nuclear bombs, but the US government is reluctant to license them.

Not only that, because ARPA belongs to the US Department of Defense, of course, Orion's budget also depends on this agency. Unfortunately, the US Defense Secretary under the Kennedy Administration, Robert McNamara, did not consider Orion as a military asset and refused to increase any funds other than feasibility studies for the project.

Despite taking into account the complex technical details of the ship, the whole project is still questioned by the risks arising from its own operating principles: that is the danger from the fallout of the fruit. atomic bomb during use.

If an atomic bomb is used to lift Orion from the launch pad, it will create a giant cloud of radioactive dust spreading in the atmosphere. Therefore, the team decided that it would be brought up with conventional explosives, and when high above the atomic bombs were used. At this mid-air altitude, the bomb will produce less radioactive dust.

Physicist Dyson estimates that, if an Orion 6,000-ton ship uses conventional nuclear weapons, it will produce the same amount of radioactive dust as dropping a 10 Megaton nuclear bomb. This amount of radiation is enough to make from 0.1 to 1 person died of cancer worldwide. So once a ship launches for the Mars mission will be able to cause 10 deaths - an overwhelming number.

Meanwhile, Taylor believes, the bomb's special designs could reduce the level of damage caused by fallout below the number 10 above, even eliminate it altogether, if possible to create a case. Explosive fusion less contaminated.

This is just a calculation for the bomb explosion as planned. Of course, the prospect of a bomb that doesn't explode and falls straight to Earth, or igniting in the atmosphere, is not pleasant. Another problem is that if the bomb contains any metal, such as tungsten, they will not only become radioactive gas, but also ionize space along the Earth's magnetic fields and be returned to the atmosphere. book.

Not only that, at this time, the Kennedy administration is also trying to negotiate a Treaty to ban nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union. These negotiations and radioactivity make the project campaign impossible.

In 1963, the Particle Nuclear Prohibition Treaty was signed between Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union to prohibit nuclear testing on the ground, in the air and in space. US negotiators attempted to make an exception for spacecraft testing, but the Soviets refused to worry about a flaw in developing military weapons.

Orion's death

Project Orion now falls into despair. Without nuclear weapons tests, spacecraft could not be developed. To race into space, the government turned to support Apollo and the Saturn V, eliminating Orion from the mainstream space program. Meanwhile, the Air Force was stuck with another non-military project, and they could not support the project.

By the end of 1963, the only agency still interested in Orion was the Strategic Air Command, which was attracting a fleet of space ships. Ironically, all that the team can demonstrate is just a 2.5-meter model to simulate what a completed ship looks like. For Washington, this is less convincing than a vague idea.

In 1964, with the argument that Orion was not just a civilian project, it was also diverting funds for defense projects, Air Force to transfer Orion to NASA. Now NASA has its own nuclear missile project and sees Orion as just a legacy of the Ministry of Defense. Moreover, they are having to build their budget to build Apollo and are ready to take off.

In 1965, in a final attempt to salvage Orion, General Atomic asked the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to allow underground testing. The AEC has accepted the proposal, but NASA thinks this is meaningless when they do not plan for interplanetary interplanetary flights.

Orion has no supporters, no missions and no money. By June 30, 1965, the Air Force officially closed the project and the study lasted for 7 years in shelter. The public does not even know its existence.

While technical obstacles are not Orion's main challenges, to this day, political and safety issues remain barriers to the idea of ​​settling down on Mars by operating spacecraft. with atomic bombs becomes impossible. The small atomic bombs in Orion's design are what terrorists and extremists seek for years.

Not only that, but decades of interruption also cause other problems: artificial satellites surround the Earth. Electromagnetic impulses from a bomb can adversely affect these unprotected satellites. In addition, there is danger from heavy ions emitted from the bomb when they are trapped on the Van Allen belt surrounding the Earth.

Even so, Orion doesn't really disappear. In the 1970s, the British Federal Agency exploited Dyson's ideas and refined it for the Daedalus project, using a fusion engine similar to Dyson's to be able to create a ship with velocity. up to 12% of the speed of light. In 1989, NASA also revealed the Longshot project, with the intention of launching the Space Station Freedom space station, using a 300 kW nuclear reactor to power a fusion engine, which could propel a probe. unmanned to speeds equal to 4.5% of the speed of light.