George Dyson on the Orion Project: A Nuclear, Saturn-Bound, Hotel-Sized Spaceship That Should Have Happened [Clips]


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The George Dyson video from 2002’s TED just went live, describing the Orion Project, a deeply classified space vessel from the Atomic Age. It was nuclear powered. The size of a Marriott hotel and 400-tons. George Dyson’s father was on the project, which started in General Atomic in 1957. Did I mention that scientists from the hydrogen bomb project worked on this thing? Why? Because the nukes weren’t used as power the craft like Homer Simpson’s workplace does. They were hoping to smash the atoms and direct the explosions for 20 megatons of lift!

Given the time frame, the planners on the Orion had even built in defense systems meant to retaliate against the Russians. This project was was the first contract funded by DARPA. In this video, George also steps through passenger acceleration profiles, emergency plans if Orion failed to clear the atmosphere and the not so cool 700 rads […]

Original post by Brian Lam

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This entry (permalink) was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 9:53 PM by and categorized in george dyson, orion, orion project, ted, Spaceship, Dyson, Space, ship, Clips.



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