Nuclear Pulse Propulsion

Recently, I heard of something called nuclear pulse propulsion. It began with Project Orion in the 1950s. The idea was to use nuclear explosions to propel a spacecraft. In order to channel the immense amount of power from the explosions to the ship, a large plate would shield the ship from the explosion and by means of shock absorbers protect the crew and transmit the energy to forward motion.

The main assets of the plan were its ease of enactment and effectiveness. The design allowed known materials, namely steel and nuclear technology, to be used while still being able to power a massive ship over long distances far faster than any technology we have now even 50 years later. Its specific impulse or fuel efficiency (space travel’s equivalent of “miles per gallon”) is estimated to be anywhere between 12 and 200 times that of NASA’s space shuttles, and a journey to Mars now estimated to take 12 months would take four weeks. In addition, the spaceship could weigh thousands of tons and still lift off.

Technical problems include devising an appropriate shock absorber and providing enough radiation shielding for the crew, but just as solutions for these were found in the 1960’s the project was cancelled due to two main factors. First, the Partial Test Ban Treaty between the US and Soviet Union made the Orion Project illegal, and second, the fallout effects from the nuclear pulses as a result of a launch inside the magnetosphere would kill several people. While no longer a viable option for space travel in the near future, nuclear pulse propulsion with its potential to create a constructive use for the thousands of nuclear bombs that have been made, and its effectiveness as a space design, is a technology which deserves a second look.