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A comment on Project Orion. Parent comment

Re:Project Orion by mpweiher on Thursday March 16, 2023 @04:46PM (#35188308)
> Footfall by Niven and Pournelle which featured launching the USS Missouri into orbit on an Orion style pusher

Yes, there was an Orion. No they didn't launch the USS Missouri. The ship was called Michael and featured, among other crazy weaponry, X-Ray lasers of the SDI type, i.e. some material (ruby?) pumped by a nuke. The nuke would destroy the material, but in the process get it to lase X-Rays. Heck, if you're using nukes for propulsion, might as well do that as well.

Maybe they repurposed the guns for something?

I distinctly remember some dialogue that there was some fairly rough welding of thick steel plates going on, none of the ultra-fine tolerances of traditional rocket engineering.

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Re:Project Orion by AtlasBarfed on Thursday March 16, 2023 @11:49PM (#35192810)
An orion spacecraft's best efficiency is a ship the size of millions of tons.

Yeah, you don't need to cross the T's on that as much.

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