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Orion Drive
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> Project Orion
Project Orion: The Atomic Spaceship 1957 to 1965
Imagine a 4,000 ton spacecraft powered by 2,600 nuclear weapons
and carrying a crew of 50. Imagine that spacecraft reaching Mars in
1965,
and reaching Saturn by
1970.
It might sound like science fiction, but this was in fact a real project,
known as "Project Orion" which was seriously considered by some parts of
the US government, and backed by many leading scientists, engineers and military
people.
The story of this amazing idea is contained within
"Project Orion: The Atomic Spaceship 1957 to 1965". This is a book by
George Dyson,
the son of Freeman Dyson, who was one of the leaders of the project.
The book is well written and quite clearly a labor of love. It contains
a tremendous amount of detail about the project, how it would have worked,
and the political struggles that eventually killed it.
Many details of Project Orion are still classified, how
George Dyson appears to have been able to obtain more than enough information in order
to tell a complete story. The book also contains numerous diagrams and drawings, many
reprinted from original documents of the time - although sadly
the photographs (at least in the paperback edition that I have) are all
black and white.
Although the book is written in an accessible style that the layman can easily follow,
it should also be emphasized that this is a high quality work that professionals
and academics will appreciate too. For example,
there is an 11 page list of Project Orion technical reports (apparently
incomplete because of "restrictions imposed under the Atomic Energy Act
of
1954"),
nearly 300 footnotes, and a detailed index.
Disclosure: Following product(s) details and descriptions provided by Amazon.com. Our company may receive a payment if you purchase products from them after following a link from this website.
By George Dyson
Holt Paperbacks
Paperback (368 pages)
 | List Price: $16.00*
Lowest New Price: $56.98*
Lowest Used Price: $42.99*
*(As of 23:24 Pacific 3 Mar 2010 More Info)
Click Here | Product Description:
n 1957, a small group of scientists, supported by the U.S. government, launched an attempt to build a four-thousand-ton spaceship propelled by nuclear bombs. The initial plan called for missions to Mars by 1965 and Saturn by 1970. After seven years of work, political obstacles brought the effort to a halt. The Orion team, led by the American bomb-designer Theodore B. Taylor, included the physicist Freeman Dyson, whose son George was five years old when the existence of the project was first announced. In Project Orion, George Dyson has synthesized hundreds of hours of interviews and thousands of pages of newly excavated documents, still only partially declassified, to piece together one of the most tantalizing 'what if' stories of the twentieth century. |
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By George Dyson
Penguin Books Ltd
Paperback (368 pages)
 | List Price: $16.50*
Lowest Used Price: $122.21*
*(As of 23:24 Pacific 3 Mar 2010 More Info)
Click Here | Product Description:
The race to the moon dominated space flight during the the 1960s yet, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, the US Government sponsored a project that could possibly have sent 150 people on expeditions to Mars or Saturn. The project was code-named "Orion" and centred upon the effort to develop a fast, manoeuvrable, nuclear-powered space vehicle for long-range voyages in space. The proposed 4000-ton spaceship would be propelled by nuclear bombs but, strictly classified, the project was never given a chance to succeed or fail - due partly to its apparent absurdity - but its mix of sublime physics, madcap engineering, and a cast of Cold War warriors and would-be inter-galactic engineers made the mission a tantalising "what if" story. In this book George Dyson, son of physicist Freeman Dyson, one of the original project team, pieces together the story his father could only tell him in fragments at the time. |
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By George Dyson
Allen Lane
Unknown Binding
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