UltraJohn wrote:
Anthony W wrote:


Robert Bonomi wrote:


Google for "orion spacsatellite Getting the Queen Mary to Mach 1 is a
_trivial_ job for that kind of propulsion system. grin

The orion was like shooting a bullet shaped 10 story building into
space. It's a shame the project was scrapped. The fallout from it
would have been less than from the 3rd world countries doing nuke tests.

I taped the show on the Orion from the History channel and I'm over due
to watch it again...

Tony


Well reading one article it notes that the fallout was way underestimated
because they figured to use nuclear fusion vice fission so would have
significantly less fallout unfortunately the required fission triggers
would mostly make up for any savings in fallout, the net affect is a very
dirty launch.
The biggest problem from what I read is EMP which would take out any
satellite within about 1000 miles which wasn't a big deal in early 70's
when there wasn't any satellites but these day's would take out hundreds of
satellites cost billions and billions plus ****ing off more than a few
countries g!
John

As I recall they had a target launch date in the early 1960s and
ecpected to reach the outter edge of the solar system by 1970. EMP
wouldn't have been a problem in 1963... Doubt there will be anything
remotely like like the Orion in my life time.

Tony