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Don't tell me Bush is thinking of bringing back Project Orion. It's almost a good idea, except for the bad PR and the possible nuclear contamination. Not that I'd object to Bush getting some bad PR, of course.
Apparently, there were plans to build a high-atmosphere sky base above the USSR during the cold war using this technology. Makes you wonder just what our government is capable of.

The only problem is that we need lengths of about 4 meters to build the space elevator; currently we can build buckytubes about 3 mm, at best. But with self-assembly techniques like the one referenced in this article at Science Daily , which allowed the authors to build buckytubes with buckyballs inside, we may have the necessary materials soon.

We're out of explosives. What we need is a plan!

Ambient pressure on the moon is in the range of 1 E-12 torr (night) to 1 E-10 torr (day).

Exhaust from the transport spacecraft and leakage from the habitat will be roughly comparable to the daytime gas pressure for
the 20 person base, and will degrade the vacuum to the range of 2.E-9 torr
for the 250 person facility. This is higher than the desired pressures for
some semiconductor manufacture processes or for a lunar-based particle
accelerator.

Economically viable? Hard to say. Necessary? Yes, eventually. Legal? No, but then again, treaties with USA aren't worth the paper they're written on.

Environmentally friendly? CHRIST NO! Why bother, if you launch it from the moon? The moon (and the rest of space for that matter) is a dead pile of ashes, perfect playground for boys and the big toys. Space is the place where maniacs with giant guns and bombs can do some good!

If you're going to seriously think about nuclear powered cars, I suggest looking up some of the historical data on the nuclear powered airplane project:

• The Decay of the Atomic Powered Aircraft Program (12 Nov 1992)
• NUCLEAR POWERED AIRCRAFT - Nuclear Thermal Propulsion
• INEL News, March 19, 1996 - nuclear aircraft engines on display at INEL - (google cache)

It was called Project Orion. It ran for several years in the late 50s and early 60s and was more or less killed off by the nuclear test ban treaty of 1963.

There was a considerable amount of R&D work, including building of at least one prototype (a scale model, using conventional explosives). IIRC, the Coca-Cola folks provided some expertise in desigining the mechanism to store & release the bombs; vending machines have been doing this for many years. One wonders how much change the pilot would have to carry for a trip to Alpha Centauri...

There was this old Solar System simulator for the macintosh that was based on the 'Orion Project'. It was really cool, your could 'fly' around the local star system in real time if you wanted to. At the speeds that would have been possible using the 'Orion Project'.

...and I'm not sure we should trust this Kyle Sagan either.

The trick to making it cheap was to use existing technologies, far from the bleeding edge and accepting some loss in absolute performance, and small launch teams to fly often. A dozen people launching once a day would be reasonable. This is in direct contrast to The NASA Way of developing high technology to squeeze out the maximum theoretically possible performance for rockets that take tens of thousands of people to launch every month or so.

A prototype vehicle, the DC-X, was built by McDonnell Douglas Aerospace. It flew several times, demonstrating such techniques as vertical take-off and landing, rapid turnaround and operations with a small launch crew. It was highly successful, and Congress was impressed and allocated more money to continue development.

Unfortunately, the money never got there. It turns out that BMDO (Ballistic Missile Defense Organization--Star Wars) was developing the DC-X because they had use for getting into space cheaply. This was 1994, Clinton was now in office, and anything that helps Star Wars was inherently evil. The money was choked off by 'the unknown staffer'.

Renegade forces at NASA managed to rescue the DC-X program briefly. But it was a flight test program, things happen, and eventually the test vehicle toppled over on landing (landing gear problem) and burned. That's why you always make two or more flight test objects if you can afford it.

But the demonstration project was so visibly successful that NASA announced a competition to build the next step X-vehicle, the X-33. This would be a single stage vehicle that would not necessarily get all the way to orbit, but would reach certain performance levels (mach numbers, etc.) while demonstrating the technologies needed. It was explicitly stated in the announcement that achieving the goal with the lowest technology risk, staying within the state of the art as far as possible, would be favored.

McDonnell Douglas proposed a follow-on to their DC-X vehicle, using achievable technology. The contract went to LockMart, at a ceremony where Al Gore (remember him?) praised all the technology developments that their version would require.

The LockMart X-33 had quite a few technology requirements that were hard. One of them was developing the large composite cryogenic tanks required for the high-performance (but bulky, low temperature) liquid hydrogen they would use. When people questioned their ability to make the tanks, LockMart said, effectively, 'We can't say--wink wink--that we have ever made tanks like these, but--wink wink--we are a defense contractor with experience in various classified projects.'

They were lying only by implication of course, but the tanks they tried to build delaminated due to shoddy workmanship and their apparent lack of experience with building large composite cryogenic tanks.

To cut a long story short, they were 3 years and about a billion dollars away from high-mach number flight when they won the contract in 1996. Five years and about a billion later, they claim to be within 2 years and a bunch more government handouts to being able to possibly fly at a much lower speed, maybe achieving some of the requirements.

LockMart is raking in the bucks with their current high cost expedable rockets. Some cynics have suggested that they have no interest in developing a vehicle that will cut launch costs by one or two orders of magnitude.

Sometimes, it's best to just cut your losses. Ever hear of the space station (estimated in 1982 to be completed by 1990 for $8 billion)?

http://www.islandone.org/Treaties/BH595.html

http://www.ila-hq.org/pdf/SpaceLaw.pdf

http://www.seas.columbia.edu/~ah297/un-esa/paper-w inkler.html

The basic gist of all this is that the launching State is responsible for any damage caused by space vehicles or satellites.

There are a number of organizations who are interested in developing space for its commercial applications. These include (but are not limited to):

• Artemis Society
• PERMANENT
• The Mars Society
• The Island One Society
• The Lunar Society

At the current time, there is to obvious economic benifit to going beyond geosyncronous orbit. Yet all of these organizations believe that we should so proceed. Why? Because there are abundant resources available on the moon, Mars, and asteroids. No, they are not in the forms that we are used to using them, but they are the same 100 odd elements of which everything here on Earth is made. I will not repeat the cases for going to the various bodies in our solar system... the different organizations which I listed above, and others like them, make a better case that I have time or space for here.

Currently, the chief restriction to executing any of these exploration and development programs is the high cost of getting materials into orbit. Face it, the space shuttle is overpriced, and alternative launch vehicles are not much better. However, several private firms (in addition to several government contractors) are in a race to develope low cost launch systems. Will they succeed? Almost certainly so within the next five years.

And once we have low cost (relative term) launch systems, I expect we will see a space tourism market begin. That will probably be the early economic force in the development of space.

And beyond that? As Robert Heinlein said in his writing, "Once you reach Low Earth Orbit, you are half way to anywhere in the Solar System."

"I've failed and failed and failed" Until six or seven years ago, Walker was destitute. "The one thing I've done more in life than anything is failed," he said. "I've failed and failed and failed and failed and failed and failed."

"but you need quite a lot of reaction mass. It appeared to be more than what current launch vehicles can handle."

Did you consider a mass driver? Take chunks of the asteroid itself and throw them off into space. The asteroid becomes its own reaction mass.

There is no technical reason that we could not establish permanent bases on the moon, Mars, or on an asteroid. The fact that we could send manned missions to the moon with less than 10 years lead time (from the idea being first proposed) suggests that we can develop the technology.

It is unlikely that NASA would be able to execute such a mission. Unfortunately, the space agency is no longer the can do group it was in the 1960's. Instead, it has grown into another Bureaucratic monster, more concerned with maintaining its funding that searching out new, expansive goals.

We can expect privately funded space launch services such as Rotary Rocket or Cerulean Freight Forwarding Company within the next five years. With these and other companies providing access to low earth orbit, there will be a ten fold decrease in the cost off access to space. This will allow more activity in space, which in turn will encourage more launchers to provide access. It is quite likely that Space Vacations will be available for the affluent inside the next ten years, with costs as low as $100,000 per person for a two week stay in a space.

There are groups who want to move permanently into space. Eventually, we will be going to the moon, Mars, the Asteroids, and elsewhere. If you are interested in promoting space, I recommend that you join one or more of these organizations.

• Warp drive runs counter to the "talk only" assumptions of SETI
  
• An image showing the curvature of space in the region of the travelling warp
  
• A more energy-cheap way to make the same warping effect
  

While commenting on some problems regarding SETI searches, I provide a discussion of how O'Neill's colonies might be updated using biotechnology and nanotechnology. Steel and aluminium are terrible structural materials compared with diamond, buckytubes and sapphire. The combination of the short replicating times allowed by nanoscale self-replicating systems and the material properties of the strongest materials will allow us to rapidly go far beyond O'Neill's vision -- to the point of dismantling entire planets.

Government support or programs is not required to do this. Molecular Nanotechnology of the type being developed by Zyvex is required. In addition, we need the designs for the nanobots to take apart the asteroids or planets, construct the mass drivers and solar arrays, etc. The lack of molecular designs, is discussed in the Nano@Home proposal. Because we will be able to do the designs at home, a small dedicated group will eventually be able to bootstrap the development of space and achieve the vision O'Neill described. Because of the rapid increase in the available resources (matter and energy) per person, the large number of people living in poverty should disappear as well. The only potential problem I see is if Mind Uploading becomes feasible (or real AIs are developed) and unlimited copying of such entitites is allowed. This has been explored in more detail by Robin Hanson in If Uploads Come First.

NASA's Shuttle was supposed to have provided per pound cost of access to low earth orbit for hundreds of dollars, not thousands or tens of thousands. In fact, a Shuttle derived heavy lift vehicle was proposed that was projected to bring the transportation cost to LEO down under $100/lb.

When O'Neill et al realized that NASA was incapable of delivering on even a fraction of their promised performance figures, they started scrambling around to find ways to lessen the critical mass of equipment required to get a self replicating facility put in place on the moon.

This resulted in the publication of the paper: O'Neill, Gerard K.; Driggers, G.; and O'Leary, B.: New Routes to Manufacturing in Space. Astronautics and Aeronautics, vol. 18, October 1980, pp. 46-51.

That paper defined much of SSI's research and development agenda and inspired my activie participation with SSI as local support team leader. I ceased my involvement with SSI when they later entered into what I considered an inappropriate relationship with NASA.

Work along the lines laid out by O'Neill, Driggers and O'Leary has not died out entirely. See, for example Advanced Automation for Space Missions.

But now that Bt is continuously present in whole fields of Monsanto potatoes, the insects in those field will be continuously exposed to Bt. Therefore it is only a matter of time before they develop "resistance" and become immune to Bt's toxic effects.

In general though, I do think people react with excessive hysteria to the idea of biologically engineered foods. I don't trust most of the alarms that I hear sounded about these things, in part because I know how badly the technophobes have exaggerated in the past (nuclear power for me is the canonical example: it's the issue on which the left forever lost my trust as a source of information).

It *would* be nice to have a good way of evaluating technical-public policy questions, but we aren't anywhere near it yet. If you haven't read anything like this yet, you might want to look at Eric Drexler on "Science Courts"/"Fact Forums".

I know that you think that people who question this are just "old-fashioned" or crazy but really I think it is good to educate yourself in the opposition's view.

And as for understanding the opposition: Sure, I do what I can. Time is always the problem, no?

Since when was space not privatized? There is nothing to stop a corporation from going to Mars.

Relevant treaties are the TREATY ON PRINCIPLES GOVERNING THE ACTIVITIES OF STATES IN THE EXPLORATION AND USE OF OUTER SPACE etc. and the AGREEMENT GOVERNING THE ACTIVITIES OF STATES ON THE MOON AND OTHER CELESTIAL BODIES, particularly the bit which says

Neither the surface nor the subsurface of the moon, nor any part thereof or natural resources in place, shall become property of any State, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person. The placement of personnel, space vehicles, equipment, facilities, stations and installations on or below the surface of the moon, including structures connected with its surface or subsurface shall not create a right of ownership over the surface or the subsurface of the moon or any areas thereof.

"The moon", as used in the treaty, means "the moon and every celestial body in the solar system other than the Earth", incidentally. Useful stuff at http://www.islandone.org/Treaties/.

Since when was space not privatized? There is nothing to stop a corporation from going to Mars.

Relevant treaties are the TREATY ON PRINCIPLES GOVERNING THE ACTIVITIES OF STATES IN THE EXPLORATION AND USE OF OUTER SPACE etc. and the AGREEMENT GOVERNING THE ACTIVITIES OF STATES ON THE MOON AND OTHER CELESTIAL BODIES, particularly the bit which says

Neither the surface nor the subsurface of the moon, nor any part thereof or natural resources in place, shall become property of any State, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person. The placement of personnel, space vehicles, equipment, facilities, stations and installations on or below the surface of the moon, including structures connected with its surface or subsurface shall not create a right of ownership over the surface or the subsurface of the moon or any areas thereof.

"The moon", as used in the treaty, means "the moon and every celestial body in the solar system other than the Earth", incidentally. Useful stuff at http://www.islandone.org/Treaties/.

Since when was space not privatized? There is nothing to stop a corporation from going to Mars.

Relevant treaties are the TREATY ON PRINCIPLES GOVERNING THE ACTIVITIES OF STATES IN THE EXPLORATION AND USE OF OUTER SPACE etc. and the AGREEMENT GOVERNING THE ACTIVITIES OF STATES ON THE MOON AND OTHER CELESTIAL BODIES, particularly the bit which says

Neither the surface nor the subsurface of the moon, nor any part thereof or natural resources in place, shall become property of any State, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person. The placement of personnel, space vehicles, equipment, facilities, stations and installations on or below the surface of the moon, including structures connected with its surface or subsurface shall not create a right of ownership over the surface or the subsurface of the moon or any areas thereof.

"The moon", as used in the treaty, means "the moon and every celestial body in the solar system other than the Earth", incidentally. Useful stuff at http://www.islandone.org/Treaties/.

Hrmm...


<dig dig>

This paper seems to suggest that due to the Earth's rotation, an object farther away from the surface will build potential energy in much the same fashion that the blades of a celing fan move faster at the tips.


From the paper:


The classic example is a skyhook, a cable in geosynchronous orbit long enough to reach down and attach to the ground. A payload which climbs the skyhook builds potential energy, gains momentum from the Earth's angular momentum, and can go into orbit.

Thus, it would seem to me that if you attach the earth end of the elevator to the Earth and have enough weight at geosynchronis orbit, if the elevator broke then the broken piece would fly off into space, or at least orbit (think broken fan blade). What would happen to the attached end I couldn't say...

How crazy was Project Chariot? Consider the fact that Bikini Atoll is now one of the best sites for skin diving and sport fishing on the planet. (Read that as "lots of shipwrecks in pristine condition" and a nearly-undisturbed environment for the past 40 years.) The most serious radiological contaminant on Bikini is Cs-137, and the main reason it's a problem is because the local vegetation picks it up in place of potassium. It's a land problem, not a sea problem. Since a putative Alaskan harbor isn't a likely site for crop-growing, and since it would have been excavated with high-yielding thermonuclear devices designed to maximize explosive yield and minimize heavy radionuclide production, the residual radiation levels around the site would have dropped to habitable levels relatively quickly. (Of course, whether it would have cooled off in time to be economically viable compared to conventional construction, or even whether or not a harbor would have benefited the Alaskan economy is a question for economists, not physicists :)

IMHO the best use for nuclear explosions would have been Project Orion; a nuclear pulse engine. Another cool project killed by the ignorance of the public when it comes to things nuclear.

Teller has every right to be bitter. It appears from the article that many people are unable to separate the man from the device he helped build. In an age in which the public is so frightened of the word "nuclear" that they argue to ban space probes like Cassini due to their RTGs, and in which people prefer the cyanide in apricot pits to chemotherapy "because it's the natural way to fight caner", it's not surprising that Teller's vision of the application of technology to build a better world is viewed as hubris, and his contributions are held in low esteem.

Back to nukes. Anyone interested in the history of atomic weaponry should consider a visit to the National Atomic Museum in New Mexico. The timing is great - the first weekend of October also marks the date on which White Sands Missile Range opens up the Trinity Site to the general public, allowing tours of the site of the first fission explosion.

Finally - whatever your opinions on the horror of the bomb's use - the physics behind it was still beautiful. Anyone wanting more detailed information on the design is highly encouraged to read Carey Sublette's Nuclear Weapons FAQ - a 14-part document also available at the FAS High Energy Weapons archive.

Realize this: those in power will never voluntarily relinquish their control. Only by destorying those who would destroy us will we regain our freedom. Each year they take more and more of our freedoms from us. They will continue to do so until they are forced to stop. Emphasis on the word force.

The loss of George Koopman was a tremendous blow, but the failure of their Single Engine Test vehicle on 10/5/89 was not a consequence of his accident. Decisions and circumstances unrelated to the engine technology pretty much doomed the proof of concept vehicle. Of course, we didn't recognize that until after the thing burned up like a stack of tires on the pad and sent a thick cloud of black smoke over Santa Maria, CA. (At least we proved the safety of hybrids - a solid or liquid rocket would have exploded spectacularly.)

AMROC spent a lot of effort optimizing their 75,000-lb thrust hybrid engine. I'm still bound by an NDA, but I can tell you that instabilities and resonances in the combustion flow occupied most of their attention. (The early ones would sputter and rumble and drone and even pop the casing or spew chunks of flaming rubber - it wasn't pretty.) I'm curious as to how this is affecting the current development of the 250,000lbf engine (the press releases mention nothing). Interestingly, SpaceDev of San Diego acquired AMROC's intellectual property last year, and they are not a member of the Hybrid Propulsion Demonstration Program consortium. Some of the AMROC principals helped establish the hybrid division at HMX, and they aren't involved, either. (It's hard not to jump to the conclusion that Lockheed and co. didn't intentionally ignore AMROC's legacy.)

But yes, AMROC went out of business just a few years ago. It was an amazing company to work for: the President, George A. Koopman, was ex-CIA, ex-Hollywood, and co-author of Neuropolitique with Timothy Leary. James Bennet, VP and later president, penned seminal commercial space policy, and acquired for AMROC one of the first commercial launch licenses. Investors in AMROC in the late 80's included the Belushi family, Robby Kreiger, the Leary estate, and many other counterculture and fringe culture venture capitalists.

Oh, yeah - and once Koopman once gave me the most awesome buds I have ever tasted in my life! George was extremely charismatic, terrific at drumming up investment money, and an inspiration to everyone who worked for him. Aside from demolishing our morale, his death effectively marked the end of investment money for AMROC...

Most of the officers and technical gurus at AMROC came from Bennet's and Koopman's earlier hybrid company: Starstruck. Starstruck, based in the SF Bay Area, launched a hybrid demonstrator in 1984, called the Dolphin. It was a sea launch concept, implemented >10 years before Boeing's Sea Launch. The vehicle was towed out to sea, buoyed only by collars of balloons. Before launch, the aft balloons were purged, the vehicle righted itself, the torch was lit, and it leapt out of the ocean. Regrettably, there's very little info available on the web regarding Starstruck.

"No; after disappearing down the back of the sofa/into the depths of the washing machine/through the lining of your coat pocket, those things actually appear as antisocks and antipens in a parallel universe. Down the back of some sofa in some universe there must be a fortune in anticoins."


Close, but no cigar. Most of these items are short-lived exotic things. i.e.Socks with negative energy mass. This means that they are destroyed fairly quickly after they are lost (on the order of a few milliseconds). Man, if only we could collect exotic matter socks... warp drive would be possible...

//end humor

Where are the "lies" in the article you are replying to? Yes, some Democrats supported the CDA (it was introduced by a Democrat, Senator Jim Exon, and cosponsored by a Republican, Senator Slade Gorton). But Clinton was originally against it, as it was written, because it violated the First Amendment. He did want to work out some compromise, though, that would not violate Constitutional rights. You can read what the EFF has to say about this he re. Exon was backed by the Christian Coalition, the Family Research Council, and the National Law Center for Families. He was opposed by the ACLU and the EFF. Here's one letter written by groups in favor of Internet censorship, from the EFF's page:

fundamentalists_cda_congress_101695.letter
Letter to leaders of Congressional committees with the power to successfully introduce Internet censorship legislation even worse that Exons, from the Christian Coalition, Ed Meese, Morality in Media, and other fundamentalist pro-censorship groups. Address Rep. Henry Hyde took the bait, introduced their suggested legislation, and it was his version of the Comm. Decency Act that passed into law, Feb. 1996.

Add onto that, the first House members to come out vocally against the CDA were:

Jun 21, '95: Several prominent House members publicly announce their opposition to the CDA, including Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA), Rep. Chris Cox (R-CA), and Rep. Ron Wyden (D-OR).

Yes. And in the Senate, a week earlier, on June 14, two Democratic senators, Leahy and Feingold, spoke "passionately" against the bill, because they thought it went against the First Amendment.

I found a list of senators who voted to attach the CDA to the Telecom Reform bill (on the same day). Assuming I counted correctly, fourteen Democrats and two Republicans voted against that. Fifty-two Republicans and 32 Democrats voted for it. So 69.6% of the Democrats, and 96.3% of the Republicans, that participated in the Senate vote voted for it.

You're right, though, that almost all of Congress eventually voted for the Telecom Reform Bill on Feb. 1, 1996. In the house, fifteen Democrats, one Independent, and no Republicans voted against it. In the Senate, four Democrats and one Republican voted against it. Here's one link to a lot of that info (with links to who voted for it about a third or so down the page; search for "Feb 1, 96" a few times), and here's another.

So a lot of people from both parties voted for it. But people on Slashdot, for some reason, make it out to be something that President Clinton forced on us. And that's incorrect. There was (somewhat) greater support for it among conservative politicians and groups. By 1998, Clinton was weakened politically by all of the scandals he got himself into, and he had to give in under pressure from the Senate and "family values" groups.